Iran targets Bahrain’s biggest oil refinery Bapco

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the US-Israeli attacks on the country have put all international laws at risk.

“They have violated all international norms and practices,” he said.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei is now delivering a news conference.

He criticised comments from US President Trump about planning to exert influence over Iran, saying “the will of our people” will define Iran’s future.

“Iranian people are fully prepared to defend their home soil,” he said.

The United Arab Emirates' defence ministry says its air defences intercepted missile and drone threats coming from Iran, adding that sounds heard in several areas Monday were the result of ballistic missile and drone interceptions.

An air strike hit Beirut's southern suburbs on Monday, Lebanese state media reported, after Israel warned it would target branches of a firm linked to Hezbollah.

Footage on AFPTV's live broadcast showed large plumes of smoke rising from the area, a stronghold of the Iran-backed armed group.

Earlier on Monday, the Israeli military warned it would strike branches of Al-Qard al-Hassan, a Hezbollah-linked financial firm mainly operating in the group's strongholds.

The Saudi defence ministry said Monday it had thwarted a drone attack targeting an oil field in the kingdom's east, near the Emirati border.

"Four drones heading towards the Shaybah oil field were intercepted and destroyed," a defence ministry statement said. (AFP)

The Lebanese Ministry of Health says at least three people have been killed and 15 others wounded in an Israeli attack on southern Tayr al-Dabba.

The latest killings come hours after health authorities reported that at least three people were killed and 16 others wounded in an Israeli raid on the nearby town of Jouaiya. [Al Jazeera]

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has offered his congratulations to the newly appointed supreme leader.

“We pledge that, in defence of the rights of the great Iranian nation, the advancement of national interests and security, and the realisation of the lofty goals of the Islamic revolution, we shall not falter for a moment,” he wrote in a statement on X. [Al Jazeera]

The US State Department has ordered non-essential US diplomats and US government employee family members to leave Saudi Arabia due to safety risks.

The decision was announced on Sunday night from Washington.

The United States began to pull out non-essential staff from Gulf Arab countries last Monday, three days into the war.

The US ​embassy in Riyadh last week was struck by Iranian drones that led to a fire that ​damaged the mission's facilities. [Reuters]

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned Iran’s “heinous” attacks on the kingdom and on other Gulf, Arab and Islamic countries.

The ministry said attacks on civilian sites, including airports and oil facilities, “indicates nothing other than a determination to threaten security and stability and constitutes a flagrant violation of international charters and international law”.

It also pushed back on Iran’s justifications for the attacks, dismissing as false Tehran’s claims that Saudi Arabia had allowed fighter jets and refuelling aircraft to operate from its territory for the war. The ministry clarified that the aircraft in question were conducting aerial patrols to protect Saudi and GCC airspace from Iranian missiles and drones.

It also warned that continued Iranian attacks “signifies further escalation” and will have a profound impact on current and future relations.

“We emphasize that Iran’s current actions toward our nations do not reflect wisdom or an interest in avoiding the expansion of the cycle of escalation, in which Iran would be the greatest loser,” the ministry said. [Al Jazeera]

The Saudi Ministry of Defence says it has intercepted and destroyed four drones over the country’s Rub al-Khali desert that was heading towards the Shaybah oilfield.

This is at least the fourth such attack on the field in recent hours. [Al Jazeera]

US President Donald Trump on Sunday dismissed the war-related spike in oil prices as a "small price to pay" for removing the threat of Iran's nuclear program.

"Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace. ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!" he wrote on his Truth Social platform. [AFP]

The dollar took another leg higher on Monday, jumping to a three-month peak on the euro as oil surged past $100 a barrel, stocks slid and investors headed for safety as protracted war in the Middle East threatened to disrupt global energy supplies.

The dollar was up 0.8% to $1.1525 on the euro EUR=, its highest since November, and rose almost 0.4% to 158.48 yen JPY= early in the Asia session.

Sterling GBP= and the Australian AUD= and New Zealand NZD= dollars fell by more than 0.6% on the dollar, while Brent and US crude futures shot to more than $108 a barrel, which is expensive enough to make a dent in global growth. [Reuters]

Several people were injured on Sunday in an Iranian drone attack on Bahrain's island of Sitra, the interior ministry said, as AFP journalists reported two loud explosions.

"As a result of the blatant Iranian aggression, injuries among citizens were reported, one of them serious, and a number of houses in Sitra were damaged as a result of an attack by drones," the ministry said. [AFP]

Iran on Monday named Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed ​his father Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader, signaling that hardliners remain firmly in charge in Tehran a week into its conflict ‌with the United States and Israel.

Mojtaba, a mid-ranking cleric with influence inside Iran's security forces and vast business networks under his father, had been seen as a frontrunner in the lead up to the vote by the assembly, a body of 88 clerics charged with choosing the new leader after Ali Khamenei. [Reuters]

About 10 vessels in or near the Strait of Hormuz have come under attack since Iran blocked the strategic waterway in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes, data analysis groups report.

The attacks throughout the week following the outbreak of war on February 28 almost completely halted traffic through the strait, a crucial route for oil and other goods.

Britain's maritime security agency UKMTO has issued around 10 alerts for attacks as well as warnings of suspicious activity, but has released few details on the vessels involved. [AFP]

Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on Sunday that Tehran is not seeking a ceasefire, adding that "aggressors" should be punished.

"If the enemy attacks us from any country, Tehran will respond decisively," he told Iran's state TV. [Reuters]

Another US military service member has died from wounds sustained during Iran's initial counter-attack a week ago, bringing the number of US troops killed in action so far in the war with Iran to seven, the US military said on Sunday.

"Last night, a US service member passed away from injuries received during the Iranian regime’s initial attacks across the Middle East. The service member was seriously wounded at the scene of an attack on US troops in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on March 1," US Central Command said in a statement.

It said the service member's identity will be withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification. [Reuters]

Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Donald Trump held a call Sunday about the Middle East war, the UK government said, after fierce criticism of the British premier by the US leader.

Trump had lobbed insults at Starmer over the latter's initial refusal to have any role in the US-Israeli war with Iran, which began on 28 February.

"The leaders began by discussing the latest situation in the Middle East and the military cooperation between the UK and US through the use of RAF bases in support of the collective self-defence of partners in the region," Starmer's office said in a statement.

"The prime minister also shared his heartfelt condolences with President Trump and the American people following the deaths of six US soldiers.

"They looked forward to speaking again soon," the statement added.

It did not mention whether the pair discussed the apparent fracturing of their close relationship over the past week. [AFP]

An attack on a residential building in Saudi Arabia has killed at least two people and wounded a dozen others, the civil defence agency says.

The strike hit a compound in central al-Kharj governorate.

Those killed were of Bangladeshi and Indian nationalities, the civil defence agency said ⁠in a post on X.

Iran’s ⁠Revolutionary Guard said ⁠earlier that it targeted radar systems in locations that included Saudi’s al-Kharj, where the deaths were reported.

Iran began hitting targets in Israel as well as US military assets in Gulf states after the initial US-Israeli strikes on 28 February and the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The US embassy in Saudi Arabia and US consulate in the United Arab Emirates came under drone attacks on Tuesday. [Al Jazeera]

US President Donald Trump said Sunday that Iran's next supreme leader "is not going to last long" if Tehran does not get his approval first.

"He's going to have to get approval from us," Trump told ABC News. "If he doesn't get approval from us he's not going to last long."

His comments came as the Iranian clerical body responsible for choosing the successor to slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei was reported to have voted and would soon announce a name. [AFP]

The United States will spare Iran's energy infrastructure as it wages war with Israel against the Islamic republic, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday.

With oil prices rising dramatically, he told CNN that disruptions to the petroleum and gas industry will be short lived -- "worst case, that's a few weeks. That's not months."

Israel attacked oil storage facilities Saturday in and around Tehran, sparking huge fires in the first such attacks reported since the war started last weekend. Wright seemed to downplay them.

"These are Israeli strikes, these are local fuel depots to fill up the gas tank," Wright said.

He added: "The US is targeting zero energy infrastructure. There are no plans to target Iran's oil industry, their natural gas industry, or anything about their energy industry." [AFP]

Iran's foreign minister said Sunday that its missiles cannot reach the United States as he defended strikes that have hit Gulf neighbours during the war in the Middle East.

"It is Americans who started this war against us, attacking us, and we are defending ourselves. So it is obvious that our missiles cannot reach the US soil," Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told NBC's "Meet the Press."

"What we can do is to attack American bases and American installations around us, which are unfortunately in the soil of our, you know, neighbor countries." [AFP]

The Israeli military said on Sunday it had struck what it described as the "space force headquarters" of Iran's Revolutionary Guards in Tehran.

"As part of the strikes, the IDF targeted and dismantled the Iranian terror regime's IRGC Space Force headquarters," the military said.

"The headquarters served as a reception, transmission and research centre for the Iranian Space Agency, which is affiliated with the regime's military," it said. [AFP]

Iran's foreign minister said Sunday that the Iranian people, not Donald Trump, will elect their new leader and demanded that the US president apologise for starting the war with Iran.

"We allow nobody to interfere in our domestic affairs. This is up to the Iranian people to elect their new leader," Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told NBC's "Meet the Press," after Trump on Thursday asserted he should have a role in picking Iran's next supreme leader.

Araghchi also said Trump "should apologise to people of the region and the Iranian people for the killings and destruction they have done against us." [AFP]

Israeli forces expanded their bombardment of Iran overnight, striking fuel depots near Tehran, while Bahrain said an Iranian attack had damaged one of its desalination plants, signalling a widening assault on vital infrastructure across the region.

As fighting escalated on day nine of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran, Tehran moved closer to naming a new supreme leader after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with every indication suggesting his powerful son Mojtaba could take charge.

Israel's military threatened to kill any replacement for Khamenei, while US President Donald Trump said the war might only end once Iran's military and rulers had been wiped out. [Reuters]

Israel's military said it struck Iranian commanders in the Lebanese capital early on Sunday, expanding the scope of strikes to the heart of Beirut after days of strikes that have left nearly 400 people dead.

The drone strike was the first within the city limits of Lebanon's capital since Israel-Hezbollah hostilities resumed last week, and came amid heavy bombardment on Beirut's southern suburbs and the country's south and east.

Israel said it targeted key commanders of Iran's elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards but did not name them.

"The commanders of the Quds Force's Lebanon Corps operated to advance terror attacks against the state of Israel and its civilians, while operating simultaneously for the IRGC in Iran," the Israeli military said in a statement. [Reuters]

The Israeli military said on Sunday that two of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, marking the first fatalities among its troops since Israel-Hezbollah hostilities resumed last week as Israeli intensified air strikes on Lebanon.

The military did not immediately provide further details on the circumstances of the incident.

Clashes have continued along the Israel-Lebanon frontier amid heightened tensions between Israel and Hezbollah following the US-Israeli military campaign on Iran. [Reuters]