The US and Israel on Feb 28 launched what they described as a “pre-emptive” joint strike against Iranian targets, with Trump announcing start of “major combat operations”
Iran has denied that its armed forces had been involved in an explosion that struck a South Korean vessel in the Strait of Hormuz this week, AFP reports.
Tehran “firmly rejects and categorically denies any allegations regarding the involvement of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the incident involving damage to a Korean vessel in the Strait of Hormuz”, its embassy in Seoul said in a statement.
Australia will force major gas exporters to set aside 20 per cent of the fuel for domestic use, Energy Minister Chris Bowen said, AFP reports.
“Twenty per cent of Australian gas exports are being reserved for Australian use,” he told reporters.
The announcement comes a day after the government said it would establish a national fuel stockpile of one billion litres to shield the nation from an energy crisis.
China’s financial regulator has advised the country’s largest lenders to temporarily suspend new loans to five refineries recently sanctioned by the US over their ties to Iranian oil, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter, according to Reuters.
The National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA) has in a verbal guidance asked the banks to refrain from extending new yuan-denominated loans, the report said, but not to call in existing credit.
US President Donald Trump has predicted that the war in Iran will be over quickly, as he seeks a deal to end the stalemate over the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran’s nuclear programme, Reuters reports.
“When you look at the kind of things that are happening, we are doing that for one very important reason: We cannot allow them to have a nuclear weapon. So I think most people understand that. They understand that what we are doing is right, and it’ll be over quickly,” Trump told a tele-rally for Georgia Republican governor candidate Burt Jones.
Japan’s Nikkei index of shares surged more than four per cent on hopes of a deal between Iran and the United States and on the back of gains in tech stocks on Wall Street, AFP reports.
At 9:31 am, the Nikkei 225 was up 4.1pc at 61,937.78 points.
Investors were also closely watching the yen after speculation of intervention by the Japanese government to prop up the beleaguered currency.
Iranian airstrikes caused far more destruction to American military sites across the Middle East than US officials have publicly acknowledged, Anadolu reports, citing a Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery.
The review documents 228 damaged structures and equipment at 15 US bases, including 217 buildings and 11 military assets.
The extent of the destruction is far greater than what the US has publicly disclosed, The Post says.
The White House has not immediately reacted to The Post’s findings.
More than half of the damage was recorded at the 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and three bases in Kuwait.
A US official has told the newspaper that those locations were hit hard probably because they permitted attacks from their territory.
The United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister has condemned remarks by Iran, rejecting “any allegations or threats that infringe upon its sovereignty”.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasised in its statement that the UAE’s international and defence relations and partnerships are a matter of pure sovereignty, and no party has the right to use them as a pretext for threats, interference, or incitement,” the ministry has said in a statement.
It adds that any discourse that includes a direct or indirect threat to the security of the UAE is “unacceptable behaviour that contravenes the principles of good neighbourliness, the rules of international law, and the Charter of the United Nations”.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam says it is premature to talk of any high-level meeting between Lebanon and Israel, Reuters reports.
Salam, in comments carried by Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA), says shoring up a ceasefire will be the basis for any new round of negotiations that might be held by Lebanese and Israeli government envoys in Washington.
Salam says Lebanon is not seeking normalisation with Israel, but rather achieving peace.
The current circumstances “are not ripe to talk about high-level meetings,” he adds, according to NNA.
“Our minimum demand is a timetable for Israel’s withdrawal,” he says, adding that the government will develop its plan to restrict weapons to state control — an effort aimed at securing Hezbollah’s disarmament.
US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott tells Al Jazeera that US President Donald Trump has made it clear that he prefers the diplomatic path but is not going to be “rushed into a bad deal”.
“Trump is going to make a good deal for the American people,” Pigott says. “Make no mistake that Trump means what he says when he says the Iranian regime can never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon.”
Israeli warplanes have targeted an apartment with three missiles in the vicinity of Haret Hreik in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Al Jazeera reports citing Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA).
Jets were also reportedly flying at a very low altitude over the Bekaa Valley.
US President Donald Trump says Washington will get enriched uranium from Iran, as the two countries struggle to reach an agreement on ending the Middle East war, Reuters reports.
“We’re going to get it,” Trump tells a reporter as he leaves a White House event.
One of Trump’s central objectives in launching military strikes against Iran was to ensure Tehran does not develop a nuclear weapon. Iran has yet to hand over more than 408 kilogrammes of highly enriched uranium.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his country is “prepared for all scenarios” in dealing with Iran, in a video statement released by his office, according to AFP.
“We are … prepared for all scenarios, and those are the instructions I have given to the army and our security services,” Netanyahu has said in the video released at the start of a security cabinet meeting.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that the country has targeted a Hezbollah commander in strikes on the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
In a post on X, Netanyahu writes, “I instructed, together with Defence Minister Israel Katz, to strike now in Beirut the commander of the Radwan Force in the terrorist organisation Hezbollah in order to neutralise him.”
Netanyahu claims that the Radwan force has attacked Israeli settlements and military personnel.
“No terrorist has immunity — Israel’s long arm will reach every enemy and murderer,” he adds.
According to Al Jazeera, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that he will speak to US President Donald Trump later today about the ongoing US-Iranian negotiations to end the war.
“There is full coordination between us, there are no surprises. We share common goals, and the most important goal is the removal of the enriched material from Iran, all the enriched material, and the dismantling of Iran’s enrichment capabilities,” he has said.
Bahrain’s interior ministry says an unspecified number of people with “close links” to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have recently been arrested in the country, some suspected of espionage, Al Jazeera reports.
United States Central Command (Centcom) has announced that an Iranian-flagged unladen tanker has been “disabled” by US forces in the Gulf of Oman, as it was headed towards an Iranian port.
In a statement shared on X, Centcom said its forces observed the M/T Hasna as it transited international waters en route to an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman.
“American forces issued multiple warnings and informed the Iranian-flagged vessel it was in violation of the US blockade,” the statement reads.
“After Hasna’s crew failed to comply with repeated warnings, US forces disabled the tanker’s rudder by firing several rounds from the 20mm cannon gun of a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet launched from USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72). Hasna is no longer transiting to Iran.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has conveyed his concerns to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian about Iranian strikes on the United Arab Emirates earlier this week.
“All parties must lift the blockade of the Strait, without delay and without conditions,” he has said in a post on X. “We must durably return to the regime of full freedom of navigation that prevailed before the conflict.”
Macron adds that France’s multinational naval mission can help restore confidence among shipowners and insurers.
“It will, by its very nature, be distinct from the warring parties. The pre-positioning of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle fits within this context,” he states.
“Recent events clearly demonstrate the usefulness that such a mission would have. I have invited the Iranian president to seize this opportunity, and I intend to discuss this matter with [US] President Trump,” Macron says.
“The return of calm in the Strait will help advance negotiations on the nuclear issue, the ballistic issue, and the regional situation. The Europeans, on whom the lifting of sanctions depends, will take their place in this process.”
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri says any agreement with Israel needs to ensure guarantees as Tel Aviv “violated” the cessation of hostilities despite Hezbollah’s commitment to it.
Berri tells Al Jazeera that Iran’s foreign minister had confirmed to them that Lebanon would be part of any deal the US secures to end the war, adding that he hoped the Iran-US negotiations would reach a “positive conclusion soon”.
