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Middle East crisis live: Iraqi tankers hit as Iran targets oil supplies; US orders petroleum reserve release in bid to calm markets

An airstrike killed at least two fighters in northern Iraq on Thursday, a news report is saying, citing sources. Thursday’s airstrike targeted a base in the city of Kirkuk, occupied by the Hashed al-Shaabi, a former paramilitary coalition now integrated into Iraq’s regular army, the report from Agence France-Presse says. The Hashed also encompasses brigades from Iran-backed groups, which have been targeted in attacks blamed on the US and Israel since the start of the war. A security source in Kirkuk said at least “two members of the Hashed forces were martyred in an airstrike that hit their base”. Search and rescue operations were still under way at the site, which had been engulfed by flames. A Hashed official told AFP that three fighters were killed in the strike. A journalist with the agency reported from Kirkuk that security forces had been deployed near the site, which is close to the city’s airport.

Ukraine war briefing: row between Kyiv and Hungary over pipeline carrying Russian oil deepens

A row between Ukraine and Hungary over a pipeline carrying Russian oil appeared to deepen on Wednesday, after Budapest said it had dispatched a delegation for talks, only for Kyiv to deny the group had any official status. Hungary and neighbouring Slovakia accuse Kyiv of deliberately delaying reopening the Druzhba pipeline pumping Russian oil to the two landlocked states. Ukraine says the pipeline was damaged by Russian strikes in January. Hungary’s Energy Minister Gabor Czepek said the group, including representatives from Slovakia, would aim to hold talks on reopening Druzhba. Ukrainian anti-drone experts have begun working in three Gulf states targeted by Iranian attacks, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday. Kyiv has sought to leverage its expertise in downing Russian drones to help the Gulf nations, which are being attacked with the same Iranian-designed Shahed drones that Russia fires on Ukraine. G7 nations Wednesday rejected easing punitive measures against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine as the Middle East war wreaks havoc on global oil markets, France’s President Emmanuel Macron said. Russian forces were attacking an oil pumping station in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region with drones for the second day in a row, the CEO of Ukrainian state oil and gas firm Naftogaz said on Wednesday. In a statement, Serhiy Koretskyi said the attacks are aimed at preventing the alternative supply of non-Russian oil to Europe, adding that Russia has attacked Naftogaz infrastructure more than 30 times this year. Russia’s foreign ministry on Wednesday condemned a deadly Ukrainian strike on the western Russian city of Bryansk as a “terrorist attack” and accused Britain, whose missiles it said were used, of overstepping international legal norms. In a statement, the ministry said the strike was intended to derail efforts toward a peace process and fuel an escalation of the conflict. Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Wednesday one more person had died in the attack, bringing the death toll to seven. Bogomaz said earlier that Tuesday’s strike had injured 42 people, without saying what was hit. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envoy met US negotiators in Florida on Wednesday, the United States said, in their first talks since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran. The talks come after the US earlier this week lifted some sanctions on Russian oil – imposed because of Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine – to ease prices amid the Iran war. Team Ukraine have launched a stinging attack on the International Paralympic Committee and Winter Paralympics organisers, claiming they have been under “systemic pressure” to reduce their presence at the Milano Cortina Games. The Ukraine National Paralympic Committee has made four specific allegations against the IPC and the Milano Cortina organisers, alleging mistreatment of its athletes and a “systematic” attempt to remove flags from the team base and spectators.

Israel bombards Beirut suburbs and southern Lebanon as conflict with Hezbollah escalates

Israeli warplanes bombarded Beirut’s southern suburbs and southern Lebanon after Hezbollah launched drones and rockets at northern Israel on Wednesday night in a sharp escalation of the 10-day conflict. Hezbollah let off successive volleys of rockets and drone swarms at Israel on Wednesday night, injuring two people, with most of the projectiles either being intercepted or falling into open areas. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said later that they had carried out some strikes with Hezbollah. In a statement carried by the Fars and Tasnim news agencies, the Guards said the “joint and integrated operation” involved a missile attack by Iran carried out in conjunction with missile and drone fire from Hezbollah. The operation focused on “more than 50 targets” on Israeli territory, the statement added, including Israeli military bases in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Beersheba. The attack by Hezbollah was the most intense launched by the pro-Iran group since it first fired rockets at Israel 10 days earlier, triggering a retaliatory military campaign by Israel. The rockets were launched in tandem with Iranian missiles, the first time the two coordinated their attacks against Israel since the Iran war started. Hezbollah’s operation, dubbed “Operation Chewed Wheat” – a reference to a Quranic verse about reducing one’s enemies to chewed wheat – was a sharp escalation by the group, believed to be battered by nearly two years of daily airstrikes by Israel. Lebanon was quickly becoming the most intense site of fighting in the region as the war in Iran, launched by Israel and the US two weeks prior, continued to consume the Middle East and beyond. Israeli warplanes began bombing Lebanon nearly immediately after Hezbollah’s strikes. The skies of Beirut were lit red and windows around the capital city shook as Israel unleashed its most powerful bombardment of the southern suburbs yet in this round of fighting. Videos showed collapsed buildings in southern Lebanon and streets choked with smoke illuminated by roaring flames. Israel also carried out a strike in the early hours of Thursday in the neighbourhood of Ramlet al-Baida in central Beirut, on the corniche where many displaced families had been sleeping rough for the last week. The strike hit the densely packed area, with videos showing at least two men lying dead on the seaside walkway. Lebanon’s health ministry said that at least seven people had been killed in the strike. Elsewhere, the health ministry said that at least 17 people were injured in the strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, though more casualties were expected from other strikes throughout the country. In southern Lebanon, Israel’s military spokesperson said that it was hitting Hezbollah’s missile launchers. They warned residents that it would “soon act with overwhelming force” against Hezbollah and that residents should distance themselves from affected areas immediately, echoing displacement orders issued for vast swathes of the country earlier last week. Israeli strikes have killed at least 634 people and injured 1,586 in less than 10 days of fighting. More than 816,700 families have registered as displaced with the Lebanese state, but more are expected to have been displaced by Israeli airstrikes and displacement orders. Wednesday night’s escalation took place as Israeli officials signalled a possible widening of its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel’s security cabinet met on Wednesday night to discuss Lebanon, where officials sought to stop the group’s ability to launch rockets into Israeli territory. On Wednesday, head of the Israeli military Lt Gen Eyal Zamir ordered reinforcements to its northern border with Lebanon, redeploying the Golani Brigade from Gaza to the north. The Golani Brigade is specialised in offensive ground operations, and analysts said the force’s redeployment could signal a larger ground invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah is reportedly preparing itself for a full-scale Israeli invasion of south Lebanon. Hezbollah fighters have been fighting with Israeli troops in south Lebanon, particularly around strategic points in the eastern parts of the country such as hilltops around al-Khiam. Small units of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force have been acting autonomously to ambush Israeli troops, which have been conducting in-and-out raids in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has reportedly spent the year-and-a-half since its November 2024 ceasefire with Israel rebuilding its capabilities and reconsolidating its organisation. Israel had killed most of the senior leadership of the group and killed or incapacitated thousands of its fighters during the 13-month war, though exact numbers are not known. As fighting continued in southern Lebanon, Israeli bombing has steadily escalated over the past 10 days. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Israel struck an apartment building in central Beirut, wounding four people. It was the second time in a week that Israel targeted deep in the capital city, leaving residents shaken and unsure where was safe. Lebanon’s government has called on Hezbollah to stop its firing into Israel, and has insisted that the state should hold the monopoly of violence in the country. But its understaffed, underequipped army has so far been unable to confront the powerful armed group directly. The government also fears provoking civil strife in Lebanon, which has a long, painful history of sectarian division and violence. The Lebanese government, with French assistance, has appealed to the international community for a ceasefire in Lebanon, calling for negotiations with Israel while vowing to curb Hezbollah’s activities in the country. Israel and the US however, are sceptical that the Lebanese government can disarm Hezbollah, with the former seemingly determined to take on the group itself. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, on Wednesday cast doubt on the Lebanese government’s efforts to confront Hezbollah. “If Hezbollah is being dismantled, what are the evidence? What are the operations against the launch sites? Where are the seizures of their weapons? Where is your military?” said Danon.

China’s rubber-stamp parliament set to approve ‘ethnic unity’ law

China’s National People’s Congress (NPC), the state legislature, will vote on Thursday on a suite of new laws agreed at this year’s annual two sessions gathering, including a piece of legislation that will diminish the role of minority ethnic languages in the education system. NPC delegates are expected to approve a new ethnic unity law, along with a new environmental code and the 15th five-year plan, the economic planning document for 2026-2030. Delegates have spent the last week debating Beijing’s proposed bills, which they are all but certain to approve. The NPC, which is often described as a rubber-stamp parliament, has never rejected an item on its agenda. The votes will take place at this year’s two sessions, concurrent meetings of the NPC and a separate Communist party advisory body, draws to a close. The main headline from this year’s gathering was the historically low 2026 GDP growth target, which China’s premier, Li Qiang, announced on 5 March. At 4.5%, it is the lowest growth target in decades, and reflects Beijing’s shifting priorities and challenging domestic economic situation. Aside from the economic targets, the NPC is the forum in which Beijing’s policies become law. One key policy for Xi Jinping, China’s president, is the “sinicisation” of China’s ethnic minorities – ie, assimilating their cultures as far as possible into that of the Han ethnic majority. Xi has said that China’s ethnic groups should be like “pomegranate seeds that stick together”. To that end, China’s new law on ethnic unity will require schools to use Mandarin by default, taking priority over minority ethnic languages such as Tibetan, Uyghur and Mongolian. The law also requires that Mandarin be displayed more prominently than minority ethnic scripts on public signage. Recent reports from Inner Mongolia, where there were protests in 2020 over the erosion of the Mongolian language, have suggested that some public signs have already been renovated to show Mandarin characters more prominently than Mongolian script. Yalkun Uluyol, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “Many of the policy directives proposed in the new law already exist in practice in Xinjiang, Tibet, or Inner Mongolia.” He said the law “is a blatant move by Beijing to legalise forced assimilation and political control”. According to NPC Observer, a website that tracks Chinese politics, the ethnic unity law has been treated with particular importance by the Chinese Communist party. In 2025, the CCP’s full politburo, led by Xi, discussed a draft of the law, something that has not been reported in four decades. The NPC is also expected to approve a new ecological and environmental code, a unified framework that will repeal and replace various laws on pollution and environmental protection as China moves towards its “dual carbon” goals of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and reaching net neutrality on emissions by 2060. The lengthy draft includes chapters on waste management, pollution prevention and climate change adaptation. Li Shuo, the director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said that the code “represents a step forward in the development of China’s environmental legal system”. “For decades, China’s environmental regulation has consisted of many separate statutes, leading to fragmentation and (as new environmental issues such as climate change emerge) inconsistency. By elevating environmental protection to a codified legal framework, it signals that environmental governance is not only a policy priority but a long-term legal commitment,” Li said. The NPC will also vote through the annual budget, the government work report, and the 15th five-year plan. Additional research by Yu-Chen Li and Lillian Yang

Iran escalates attacks on infrastructure and transport networks across the Gulf

Iran dramatically escalated its strategy of striking civilian infrastructure and transport networks across the Gulf on Wednesday, attacking commercial ships and targeting Dubai’s international airport as US and Israeli warplanes launched new waves of strikes on the Islamic Republic. Senior Iranian officials struck a defiant tone, warning of a long “war of attrition” that would threaten global economic chaos as energy supplies from the region were throttled. In what appears to be a growing stalemate in the 12-day conflict, violence continued across a swath of the Middle East, with Israeli strikes on what it says are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and barrages of Iranian missiles and Hezbollah rockets targeting Israel. Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed at least 634 people and injured 1,586 in less than 10 days of fighting. More than 816,700 families have registered as displaced with the Lebanese state. On Wednesday night, in a sharp escalation, Israeli warplanes bombarded Beirut’s southern suburbs and south Lebanon after Hezbollah launched drones and rockets at northern Israel. The rockets were launched in tandem with Iranian missiles, the first time the two have coordinated their attacks against Israel since the Iran war started. In the Gulf, Kuwait said its air defences had downed eight Iranian drones, and Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted five heading toward its Shaybah oil field. In Tehran and other Iranian cities, huge crowds took to the streets for the funerals of senior Iranian commanders killed in US and Israeli airstrikes since the beginning of the war. Mourners carried caskets and brandished flags and portraits of the late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the first minute of the US-Israeli offensive, and his son and successor, Mojtaba. Iranian officials admitted for the first time on Wednesday that Iran’s new leader had been wounded in the airstrikes that killed his father, mother, wife and a son. The 56-year-old has not appeared in public or issued any direct message since the war began. “I have heard that he was injured in his legs and hand and arm … I think he is in the hospital because he is injured,” Tehran’s ambassador to Cyprus, Alireza Salarian, told the Guardian. Despite growing pressure for the US and Israel to consider reining back their joint offensive, decision-makers in both countries appeared to continuing the campaign for now. Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Wednesday that it would continue “without any time limit, as long as required, until we achieve all objectives and win the campaign”. Donald Trump has sent more mixed messages in recent days, going from calling the war a “short-term excursion” that could end soon to proclaiming “we haven’t won enough” in the same speech in Washington on Monday. On Wednesday the US president told a rally in Hebron, Kentucky that “we won” but the US would stay in the fight to finish the job. “You never like to say too early you won. We won. In the first hour it was over,” Trump said. He claimed that the US had destroyed 58 Iranian naval ships but indicated they would continue to fight. “We don’t want to leave early do we?” he added. “We got to finish the job … We don’t want to go back every two years.” Governments across the world fear economic turmoil from surging oil prices which would anger many voters. Trump also appeared to praise the “tremendous impact” of decisions being by leaders of the G7 countries as they met to discuss the war and its economic consequences, according to a short video clip shared by the French presidency. “I think we are having a tremendous impact, unbelievable actually, on the world,” Trump said, after being given the floor by his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, who chaired the meeting. It was not entirely clear, however, who or what Trump was referring to. Trump was speaking after a recommendation by the International Energy Agency to release 400m barrels of oil, the largest such move in the IEA’s history, in an effort to restrain soaring oil prices. Hours later the US announced it would release 172m barrels of oil from its strategic petroleum reserve. But there is no sign so far that ships can sail safely through the strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil. Three merchant ships in the Gulf were struck by unknown projectiles on Wednesday, according to agencies that monitor maritime security, raising the number of ships reportedly hit since the war began to 14. Crew were evacuated from a Thai-flagged bulk freighter after an explosion caused a fire. A Japanese-flagged container ship and a Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier also sustained damage. Early on Thursday further attacks were reported – with Iraq announced two tankers were “subject to sabotage”, resulting in at least one death. Trump told reporters on Wednesday that oil tankers passing through the strait would “see great safety, and it’s going to be very, very quickly”, without giving further details. Hundreds of ships are blockaded behind the narrow channel along the Iran’s southern coast for fear of Iranian attack in the worst disruption to energy supplies since the oil shocks of the 1970s. The Revolutionary Guards said Tehran would not allow “a single litre of oil” through the vital waterway until the US and Israel stopped their bombing campaign. Iran has also continued to target oilfields and refineries in Gulf countries as it seeks to force the US and Israel to stop their offensive. “Get ready for oil to be $200 a barrel, because the oil price depends on regional security which you have destabilised,” Ebrahim Zolfaqari, a spokesperson for Iran’s military command, said in comments addressed to the US. On Wednesday the UN security council passed a resolution demanding an immediate halt to attacks on Gulf states. Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir-Saeid Iravani, condemned the vote as politically motivated. “Today’s action represents a blatant misuse of the security council mandate in pursuit of the political agendas of the certain members, the various states responsible for the brutal war of aggression against my country,” he said. Iran’s army said it had attacked key targets in Israel, including the military intelligence headquarters, a naval base in Haifa and a radar system. It also said it targeted US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. US and Israeli officials say their aim is to end Iran’s ability to project force beyond its borders and to destroy its nuclear programme, though they have also encouraged Iranians to overthrow the Islamist clerical regime, which took power after the 1979 revolution that ousted the shah, a US ally. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, repeated his call on Tuesday for the Iranian people to rise up. Iran’s police chief, Ahmadreza Radan, said any protesters would be treated as an enemy. “All our security forces have their fingers on the trigger,” he said. Residents of Tehran said they were getting used to nightly airstrikes that have sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing to the countryside and contaminated the city with black rain from oil smoke. “There were bombings last night but I did not get scared like before. Life goes on,” Farshid, 52, said by phone. Iran accused the US and Israel of striking a maritime ambulance at an island in the strait of Hormuz, the Mehr news agency reported. Adm Brad Cooper, the commander of US Central Command, said Iran’s ballistic missile and drone attacks had “dropped drastically” as a result of the US strikes, including one on a “large ballistic missile manufacturing facility”. The targets have included more than 60 ships, he said in a video posted to social media on Wednesday. Cooper also confirmed that the military was using “advanced AI tools” to “sift through vast amounts of data in seconds”. He said the tools were enabling leaders to make smarter decisions faster, but stressed that “humans will always make final decisions on what to shoot and what not to shoot and when to shoot”. Explosions rang out in Israel before dawn as air defences intercepted missiles. Sirens sent Israelis to shelters. Twelve people have been killed and hundreds injured by Iranian and Hezbollah attacks. Israeli officials have repeatedly accused Iran of using cluster munitions, which are illegal under international law, against population centres. More than 1,300 Iranian civilians have been killed since the US and Israeli airstrikes began on 28 February, according to Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani. Washington says seven US soldiers have been killed and about 140 wounded.

US intelligence sees direct attacks by Iran on oil tankers as greater risk than mines

US intelligence reporting sees direct attacks by Iran as the greatest threat to oil tankers going through the strait of Hormuz, the key transit passage for the global oil trade that has been effectively shut down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard since the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran. The Trump administration, spooked by possible preparations by Iran to mine the strait, carried out strikes against 16 mine-laying vessels near the strait on Tuesday. US Central Command posted a video showing munitions hitting nine vessels, most of which were moored as they were struck. But the more potent threat remains the risk of a direct attack by Iran at scale – for instance, a swarm of one-way attack drones or a series of shore-to-ship ballistic missiles, according to two people familiar with the intelligence who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details. The problem comes because just one missile or drone slipping through defenses could decimate or sink a tanker, giving Iran leverage even as the US launched what a senior administration official described as its largest attack against Iran in the conflict to date. As a result, even if US navy destroyers escorted the tankers, they might not be able to intercept every incoming missile, and even in the event the Trump administration provides risk insurance directly to operators, ships’ crews would still need to be convinced to pilot the vessels through the strait. Mines in some ways were more straightforward to deal with, because the US was prepared in advance of the war for the possibility of Iran attempting to mine the strategically important waterway through which a fifth of the global oil trade passes, the people said. The issues with protecting oil tankers in the strait was discussed by US military officials in a classified briefing to top lawmakers on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Democrats emerged from the briefing deeply critical of the administration. “I can’t go into more detail about how Iran gums up the Strait, but suffice it say, right now, they don’t know how to get it safely back open,” the senator Chris Murphy wrote in a social media post after its conclusion. A White House spokesperson referred questions about the risks in the strait to Donald Trump’s post on Truth Social on Tuesday, where he threatened military retaliation if Iran attempted to place mines. The US Central Command strikes on Iran’s mine-laying ships followed shortly after. The strait of Hormuz is a key passage that connects the Persian Gulf to the northern Arabian Sea. The coastline of Iran runs along one side of the strait, and military and civilian vessels transiting through are at risk of shore-launched attacks as they enter or exit the gulf. Since the start of the conflict on 28 February, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard has effectively shut down the strait and stranded oil tankers. The cut in supply has contributed to a steep increase in oil prices, which in turn have translated to higher gas prices for US consumers. The energy secretary, Chris Wright, said in an interview with CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the US had successfully destroyed many of the weapons Iran might use to hit ships and expected regular traffic through the strait to resume in “a few weeks”, without providing details. Still, fearing an attack by Iran, virtually all ship operators have stopped their tankers from passing through the strait. On Wednesday, at least three ships were hit in and around the strait, including one Japanese container vessel and two so-called bulk carriers that carry loose cargo like grain. Only one of the bulk carriers, the Mayuree Naree from Thailand, appeared to be in the strait when it was attacked. The other vessels were in the Persian Gulf, according to marine tracking data. Iran claimed responsibility for the attack against the Mayuree Naree.

Elevating injured Mojtaba Khamenei to supreme leader shows Iranian war machine can run on autopilot

The confirmation that Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was injured in the first wave of Israeli attacks underlines how desperate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (ICRG) was to ensure their wounded choice was elevated to high office, and how confident it is that the wartime machinery can operate almost on automatic pilot without him. The full scale of Khamenei’s injuries and speed of his recovery remain unclear, but a broken leg and facial injuries are the minimum. It is not a medical bulletin on which the authorities are seeking to dwell, although Ali Larijani, the secretary of the supreme national security council, chose his words carefully in saying “his condition has not been reported as critical”, a phrasing that suggests he has not personally seen him. In a bid to show the government was functioning in line with its constitution, he added: “Despite this incident, he continues to provide full authoritative guidance and oversight of the operations, and all actions and attacks are carried out with his direct permission and orders.” But it now looks as if some of the delay around his election was not just a technical issue of assembling in wartime the assembly of experts, the 88-strong body of clerics that elect the supreme leader, but also over doubts about Khamenei’s capacity and willingness to take on the job. That he could have survived the attack on the supreme leader’s office entirely unscathed seemed implausible given his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his mother, his wife Zahra Haddad-Adel, and one of his sons had also been killed. He also lost his sister, brother in law and a niece. His mother died three days after the attack from her injuries. The entire supreme leader’s office was incinerated. At minimum, it would have left an indelible emotional if not physical mark. Opposition groups in the diaspora have claimed that Khamenei is in a coma and is being treated in great secrecy in hospital, ignorant of both his elevation to the post of supreme leader and the devastating damage suffered by his family. The failure of the government communications machine to publish a single photograph, video or even text from Mojtaba three days after his elevation led to the inevitable speculation that the assembly of experts, wittingly or unwittingly, had elected a corpse or cardboard cut-out to run the country. The Israeli foreign ministry had little doubt about his health, printing a cardboard cut out photograph of him alongside the caption: “You can run, you can hide but cardboard regimes fold”. The lack of a public appearance or even a sound recording undermined the sense of continuity engendered by his election, and led to claims on social media that the IRGC had knowingly pressed the candidacy of a dead man. Not even the sense that his hideaway needed to be protected from circling Israeli bombs seemed a sufficient explanation. One Iranian journalist insisted: “Iran’s leader can lead without appearing in public. There is no need for him to be on the street or in a religious centre. The important point is the management of the country.” Loyalists published a photograph of him that could have been AI generated, and claimed he had chaired a meeting of top IRGC commanders. The handling of the episode was all the more strange since, despite the Iranian media being heavily censored, it started to speculate about the welfare of the silent new leader. On Tuesday, local media in Iran asked Esmail Baghaei, the spokesperson of Iran’s foreign ministry, if Khamenei had taken charge and assumed his new role as the country’s top religious and political figure and the commander in chief of armed forces. Baghaei avoided a direct answer, saying: “Those who have to receive the message have received the message.” Instead, confirmation he was injured came almost in passing in a telegram post by Yousef Pezeshkian, the temperamentally open son of the president, in which, along with a passing reference to news of snow in Tehran, he revealed that he heard Mojtaba had been injured but that he was healthy and there was no problem. Inevitably Mojtaba’s appointment, already denounced by regime opponents including some in Evin jail as a disgraceful IRGC puppet show, will be seen as a sign that they were desperate to install their man, regardless of his health. The IRGC is not just an army, it is a business empire with investments spread through the economy Maryam Alemzadeh, associate professor in history and politics of Iran at St Antony’s College, Oxford, argues the system is robust, having been intentionally designed to have a very easily replaceable leadership. “The resilience has relied on this semi-formal network of IRGC, Basij and other state services that have fulfilled multiple roles, including service provision, surveillance and repression. Decapitation does close to nothing to affect this network. If anything it creates a limited rally round the flag effect amongst this particular group, but not the larger population,” Alemzadeh said. Alex Vatanka, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said it might anyway take as long as four years for Khamenei, at age 56, to establish himself personally just as his own father struggled for authority at the outset. “The office does not give you power. It’s the personality of the occupant of the office. It takes time.” Overall, the military strategy has been set, and the conduct of the war is on autopilot, to try to maximise the external economic costs on Iran’s opponents by conducting an asymmetrical war in which there are no limits. At present Iran does not need a new leader – dead, alive or injured – to update the IRGC target base. It instead can watch Donald Trump tie himself in knots daily explaining what he is trying to achieve. What will matter more is if he is needed to help decide if and when the conflict can end. But for the moment if there is one country in this war that is rudderless, it is not Iran.

Donald Trump’s mixed messages on Iran leave questions unanswered

One week into the war with Iran, the central questions about the conflict remained largely unanswered: what would constitute victory, how long the crisis might last and whether the United States was responsible for a deadly strike on a girls’ elementary school that has come to embody the war’s early controversy. On Saturday, leaning against the bulkhead outside the press cabin as Air Force One cruised toward Florida, Donald Trump still struggled to clarify his own message. Trump has generally preferred the informal setting of an in-flight gaggle and so it felt at times that his meandering answers offered an unusually direct window into his uncertainty about what he wanted from Iran. As a Guardian White House correspondent, I was onboard to hear it as part of the press pool traveling with the president that day. Trump appeared at the front of the press cabin accompanied by his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and special envoy Steve Witkoff. And next to him, the two TV screens that had been playing Fox News until then had already swapped to the customary image of the presidential seal centered over an undulating American flag. Trump had previously said he wanted Iran to accept “unconditional surrender”, though what that meant in practical terms has remained unclear. “I said ‘unconditional’. It’s where they cry uncle or when they can’t fight any longer and there’s nobody around to cry uncle – that could happen too,” Trump said, a vague response that offered no more indication of whether he expected the Iranian regime to give up power or negotiate an end to the conflict. On the timeline for the war, Trump had just days before said in interviews that he expected the US campaign to be completed in four or five weeks, or possibly even sooner. But on the plane, he was far more equivocal. “I don’t know,” Trump said with a shrug. “Whatever it takes.” And when he was asked whether the United States was responsible for strikes that destroyed a girls’ elementary school in south-west Iran that killed more than 160 people, many of the children, Trump gave a novel answer that stunned the entire press cabin and took his own advisers by surprise. “No, in my opinion based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” Trump said. “It was done by Iran. They’re very inaccurate as you know with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever, it was done by Iran.” It was not immediately clear where the assertion had come from. Videos of the strike appear to show what weapons analysts say resembles a US Tomahawk cruise missile hitting the area near the school – a weapon used by American forces and not known to be possessed by Iran. The comment seemed to catch even members of Trump’s own team off-guard. Hegseth, asked next about the incident, said only that the matter was under investigation. All in all, as Trump marked the first week of his war against Iran that has only expanded in scope and drawn in dozens of allies in the region, the only real certainty in the president’s remarks was that the war would continue. Once upon a time, Trump used to say the hardest part of being president was signing letters to the families of soldiers killed in combat. During his 2024 presidential campaign, he often spoke about the guttural cries of grieving parents to affirm his commitment to avoid the so-called forever wars that dogged his predecessors. Perhaps Trump has become desensitized over the years, but he does not tend to speak that way any more. Asked on the flight back from the dignified transfer of six American service members killed in Operation Epic Fury about whether the experience had made him reconsider the course of the war, Trump shook his head. “No, we’re winning the war by a lot. We decimated their whole evil empire. It will continue I’m sure for a little while but I’m very proud of the people,” Trump said. Later, he added matter-of-factly that deaths were a “part of war”. In many ways, it was a jarring moment, not least because the dignified transfer at the Dover air force base had ended barely an hour earlier. During the transfer, the hazy, overcast sky seemed to cast a pall over the hulking dark silhouette of the C-17 transport plane that carried the remains of the service members back home. And then the presidential SUV pulled up to the side. Trump stepped out wearing a bright white baseball cap emblazoned with the letters “USA” – seemingly the same one he wore to announce the start of the war – that punctuated the haze and served as a reminder that much of what happens in this war is ultimately up to him.