Middle East crisis live: Israel launches ‘wave of strikes’ on Tehran; nearly 150 reported missing after Iranian warship sunk | US-Israel war on Iran

Hegseth confirmed that a US submarine sunk an Iranian warship in the Indian ocean as he declared that the Iranian navy “rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf” and that it was “ineffective, decimated, destroyed…pick your adjective, it is no more.”

He said that on Tuesday, an American submarine in the Indian ocean “sunk an Iranian war ship that thought it was safe in international waters.”

“Instead it was sunk by a torpedo, a quiet death – the first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II. Like in that war, back when we were still the war department, we are fighting to win.”

“We’re playing for keeps,” Hegseth said. “Our war fighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it.

He continued: “This was never meant to be a fair fight and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Hegseth continued his remarks by saying that in under a week, the “two most powerful air forces in the world” – the US and Israel – “will have complete control of Iranian skies, uncontested air space.”

“We will fly all day, all night, day and night, finding, fixing and finishing the missiles and defence industrial base of the Iranian military,” Hegseth said.

“Finding and fixing their leaders and their military leaders. Flying over Tehran, flying over Iran, flying over their capital, flying over the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only US and Israeli air power. Every minute of every day until we decide it’s over. And Iran will be able to do nothing about it.”

• The US and Israel’s strikes against Iran continue, with the Israeli military announcing a “broad wave of strikes” against Tehran’s security forces.

• A new in the fighting has opened in Lebanon, where the Israeli military says it is targeting Hezbollah strongholds south of the country. It issued an “urgent warning” to residents of a large swathe of southern Lebanon urging them to evacuate to the north of the Litani River.

• Iran has upped its retaliatory strikes against Israel and US targets across the region. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait all announced Iranian attacks today.

• Nearly 150 people could be missing after an Iranian warship sank off the coast of Sri Lanka. Authorities said 32 people were rescued while they search for other survivors. It was not immediately clear what happened or how many people were on board the 180-crew frigate Iris Dena.

• Clerics in Iran say they are close to choosing a successor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to state media. It is widely suggested that his second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, could replace him.

• The funeral ceremony for Khamenei that was supposed to take place tonight in Tehran has been postponed. State media, citing officials, reported that the funeral was delayed to allow time for expanded infrastructure due to “overwhelming demand”. No timeframe was given of when the funeral will take place.

• The death toll in Iran has reached 1,045 people, according to Iranian officials. Iran’s foundation of martyrs and veteran affairs said the death toll represented the number of bodies that have been identified and prepared for burial, state media reported.

• Turkish authorities said a missile launched from Iran and headed towards Turkey’s air space was shot down by Nato air defence systems. The Turkish defence ministry said there were no casualties or injuries in the incident.

• Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez has hit back at Donald Trump after he made scathing comments over Spain’s position that joint military bases could not be used for attacks on Iran.“The position of the government of Spain can be summed up in four words: no to war [no a la guerra],” Sanchez said in a televised address.

Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, has taken to the podium at the Pentagon to provide an update on the conflict.

“I stand before you today with one unmistakable message about Operation Epic Fury,” Hegseth said. “America is winning. Decisively, devastatingly and without mercy.”

The IDF just announced that it has begun “a wave of attacks in southern Lebanon”.

In an earlier statement, the IDF said it targeted underground weapons depots and headquarters in Beirut belonging to Hezbollah.

“The IDF attacked in Beirut over the past 24 hours, completing another wave of attacks against infrastructure of the terrorist organisation Hezbollah,” it said in a post on social media.

It comes as the Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned people in southern Lebanon to move north.

In a message posted on social media, he said:

For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately. Anyone who is near Hezbollah operatives, facilities, or weapons is putting their life at risk.

Any house used by Hezbollah for military purposes may be targeted. To the residents of southern Lebanon, you must head immediately north of the Litani river. For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately and move north beyond the Litani river.

Nato has condemned Iran’s targeting of Turkey after reports that a missile launched from Iran and heading towards Turkish airspace was shot down by Nato air defence systems.

Nato spokesperson Allison Hart said:

We condemn Iran’s targeting of Turkey. Nato stands firmly with all allies, including Turkey, as Iran continues its indiscriminate attacks across the region. Our deterrence and defence posture remains strong across all domains, including when it comes to air and missile defence.

The death toll in Iran from the current war with Israel and the US has reached 1,045 people, according to Iranian officials.

Iran’s foundation of martyrs and veteran affairs said the death toll represented the number of bodies that have been identified and prepared for burial, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

Nearly 150 people are potentially missing after an Iranian warship sank near Sri Lankan waters, according to reports.

The Sri Lankan navy rescued 32 people from the the 180-crew frigate Iris Dena after it reportedly issued a distress call this morning 25 miles south of the southern port of Galle, Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, Vijitha Herath, said.

A defence official told AFP news agency that rescuers were “keeping up a search, but we don’t know yet what happened to the rest of the crew”.

It remains unclear how many people were on board the vessel, or what caused it to sink.

Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the assassinated Ali Khamenei, is being heavily tipped to succeed his father as supreme leader of Iran, pitching a hardliner into the task of steering the Islamic republic through the most turbulent period in its 48-year history – and a powerful signal that it at present has no intention of changing course.

No official confirmation has been given, and the announcement may be delayed until after the funeral of Ali Khamenei. The son is believed to have been the choice of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and the Israeli defence minister, Gideon Saar, has warned he will be assassinated.

Rigid in his anti-western views, he is not the candidate that Donald Trump would have wanted. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state said on Tuesday Iran was run “religious fanatic lunatics”, and Khamenei’s appointment is hardly likely to dispel that opinion.

The choice of supreme leader is made by the 88-strong assembly of experts who, in this case, were picking from a field of six possible candidates. His election would be a powerful if unsurprising symbol that the government is not looking seek to accommodate with America.

There has been speculation stretching back more than a decade that Khamenei would be his father’s successor, and that grew when Ebrahim Raisi, the elected president and favourite of Ali Khamenei, was killed in a helicopter crash.

Mojtaba Khamenei was born in 1969 and studied theology after graduating from high school. At the age of 17, he went to serve in the Iran-Iraq war, but it was not until the late 1990s that he came to be recognised as a public figure in his own right.

After the landslide defeat of Khamenei’s preferred candidate, Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri, in the 1997 presidential election, where he won only 25% of the final vote, various conservative Iranian groups realised the need to make changes to their structures and Mojtaba Khamenei was central to that project.

He was also seen as instrumental by reformists in suppressing the protests in 2009 following allegations that the presidential election had been rigged, with his name chanted in the streets as one of those responsible. Mostafa Tajzadeh, a senior member of Iran’s reformist parties who was imprisoned after the vote, alleged that his and his wife Fakhr al-Sadat Mohtashamipour’s legal case was under the direct supervision of Mojtaba Khamenei.

In 2022, he was given the title of Ayatollah – essential to his promotion – and by then he was a regular figure by his father’s side at political meetings, as well as playing an influential role in the Islamic Republic’s Broadcasting Corporation, the government’s official media outlet that is often criticised for churning out dull political propaganda many Iranians reject in favour of overseas satellite channels. He has also played a central in the administration of his father’s substantial financial empire.

His closest political allies are Ahmad Vahidi, the newly appointed IRGC commander Hossein Taeb a former head of the Intelligence Organisation (IRGC-IO), and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the current speaker of the parliament .

His rumoured appointment and its hereditary nature has long been resisted by reformists. Mir Hossein Mousavi, referring to the long history of rumours about Mojtaba Khamenei succeeding his father as leader, wrote in 2022 : “News of this conspiracy have been heard for thirteen years. If they are not truly pursuing it, why don’t they deny such an intention once and for all?”

The assembly of experts in response denounced “meaninglessness of doubts” insisting it would only select “the most qualified and the most suitable”.

Israel on Tuesday struck the building in Qom, one of Shia Islam’s main seats of power, where the assembly was scheduled, but the building was empty, according to IRGC-affiliated media.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency has reported that the funeral ceremony for supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that was supposed to take place tonight in Tehran has been postponed.

The news agency published a statement from the Islamic propagation coordination council of Tehran province, which said the funeral was delayed to allow time for expanded infrastructure due to “overwhelming demand”.

The statement read:

The Tehran Grand Mosque was scheduled to host our dear people from tonight for a farewell to the pure body of the martyred cleric and our great Imam, but due to the overwhelming demand from across the country and the widespread desire of the people for a grand attendance at this ceremony, as well as the need to provide the necessary infrastructure, the event has been postponed.

Given the high volume of requests to attend this ceremony and the need to prepare adequate facilities to host the people, it was decided that the event would be held at a more suitable time.

A UN body said ​it was “deeply disturbed” by the deaths of children during the war in the Middle East, after ‌the bombing of a girls’ school in southern Iran.

More than 160 children were reported killed after the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab was hit on Saturday, the first day of the US-Israeli attacks against Iran.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said: “This is a reminder that children are among the most vulnerable in armed conflicts, and must never be treated as collateral damage.”

US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on ⁠Monday that the country’s forces “would not deliberately target a ​school”, while Israel commented that it would investigate the incident.

Donald Trump has said he does not care whether Iran participates in this summer’s World Cup, which is being jointly hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada.

“I really don’t care. I think Iran is a very badly defeated country. They’re running on fumes,” Trump told Politico.

Iran was the only nation missing from a Fifa planning summit for World Cup participants held this week in Atlanta, deepening questions over whether the country’s team will compete on US soil this summer amid an escalating regional war.

Read the full report here:

Lisa O’Carroll

The EU has hit back at Donald Trump’s threats to halt all trade with Spain over its decision not to allow the US use its military bases for Iran bombing missions.

The EU said it expected the US president to “honour” its bloc-wide tariff deal concluded last year but hinted at the possibility of retaliatory measures if Trump did isolate Spain in a revenge move.

“The Commission will ensure that the interests of the European Union are fully protected. We stand in full solidarity with all Member States and all its citizens and, through our common trade policy, stand ready to act if necessary to safeguard EU interests,” said trade spokesperson Olof Gill

“Trade between the European Union and the United States is deeply integrated and mutually beneficial.

“Safeguarding this relationship, particularly at a time of global disruption, is more important than ever and clearly in the interest of both sides.

“The EU and the United States concluded a major trade deal last year. The European Commission expects the United States to fully honour the commitments” undertaken in the joint statement of last August.

The EU is continuing to honour its part of that deal, allow many US goods into the bloc tariff free, even though the US supreme court ruled Trump’s 15% tariffs on EU goods were illegal.