A drone targeted the Erbil Arjaan by Rotana hotel in Iraq's Kurdistan region on Friday, security sources said, Reuters reports.
The US Embassy in Baghdad warned earlier today that Iran-linked militias could try to target hotels frequented by foreigners in Iraq's Kurdistan region.
The State Department has warned American citizens that Iran-linked militias in Iraq may try to target hotels frequented by foreigners in Iraq's Kurdistan region, as the US tries to help thousands of Americans stranded in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia has stepped up direct engagement with Iran to help contain war in the Middle East, Bloomberg reported today, citing several European officials.
As reported by Reuters, Saudi officials have reportedly been using their diplomatic channels with greater urgency towards Iran in recent days to reduce tensions and prevent the conflict from escalating.
Reuters could not immediately confirm these allegations.
The Kurdish opposition has no intention of engaging in armed conflict with the authorities in Tehran at the request of a foreign country, Khalil Nadiri, a spokesman for the Iranian Kurdistan Freedom Party, told Al Jazeera, the Russian news agency Tass reported today.
The United States is well on its way to taking control of Iranian airspace, White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said on Tuesday, adding that Washington expects achievable US objectives to be completed in four to six weeks, Reuters reports.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Leavitt also said Washington was considering potential candidates to lead Iran, a day after President Donald Trump said in an interview with Reuters that the United States must be involved in choosing Iran's next leader.
"I know there are a number of people that our intelligence agencies and the United States government are considering, but I won't go into further detail about that," Leavitt said.
In an interview on Thursday, Trump said he believed Iran's next leader would likely not be the son of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had emerged as one of the leading candidates to succeed his father, who was killed in a military strike early in the war.
Earlier today, Trump said no deal would be reached with Iran short of "unconditional surrender."
"What the president is saying is that when he, as commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States and that the objectives of Operation Epic Fury have been fully achieved, Iran will essentially be in a position of unconditional surrender, whether they admit it or not," Leavitt said.
Russia is providing Iran with targeting information that includes the locations of US warships and aircraft in the Middle East, the Washington Post reported today, citing three officials familiar with the intelligence.
Iranian forces fired seven attack drones at residential areas in Bahrain overnight, Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), said in a statement published on the X network, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.
The British newspaper The Guardian has published a video that, according to the media outlet, shows the aftermath of an Israeli attack in the south of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, a day after Israel issued an order for a mass evacuation of that part of the country.
The Guardian reports that the Israeli army has carried out new attacks on Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, as well as on cities in southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health said 217 people had been killed in Israeli attacks since Monday.
United States President Donald Trump told CNN today that the US has "already figured out" how to make the Strait of Hormuz - the world's busiest oil shipping route - safer for ships, the BBC reports.
"We destroyed their navy because, you know, when you disable a navy, they can't do what they wanted to be able to do," he said.
Trump then said that the US had hit 25 Iranian ships since the start of the war last Saturday.
Asked about the rise in oil prices, the US president said it would be "short-term".
"They have risen a little, not much, but they will fall to record lows," he said.
When asked if he would be open to a new religious leader taking over leadership in Tehran, Trump said he might be.
"It depends on who it is. I don't mind religious leaders. I work with a lot of religious leaders and they are fantastic. I say there has to be a leader who is going to be honest and fair, do his job well, treat the United States and Israel well, and treat other countries in the Middle East well, because they are all our partners," Trump said.
On Thursday, Trump reportedly told the American media outlet Axios that he wanted to be "involved" in naming Iran's next leader.
The United States (US) will respond to Iranian attacks on civilians across the Middle East, the commander of the US military's Central Command, Brad Cooper, said on Friday.
Cooper said Iran has attacked 12 different countries since the US and Israel launched strikes on the Islamic Republic last week, including the firing of seven attack drones at civilian residential areas in Bahrain on Thursday night.
"This is unacceptable and will not go unanswered," Cooper said in a statement.
Israel heavily bombed Beirut's southern suburbs with airstrikes today, escalating a war with Hezbollah that has forced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese to flee their homes and killed more than 200 people, according to the health ministry.
United States President Donald Trump said the country is relocating thousands of people from various countries across the Middle East due to the conflict with Iran.
"It's being done quietly, but without any problems," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He ended the post with praise for his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom he previously called "Little Marco."
"The State Department, under the leadership of Secretary Marco Rubio, is doing a great job!" Trump said.
Earlier this week, Trump and Rubio appeared to be at odds in their messaging, after Rubio said Israel had encouraged the Trump administration to carry out preemptive strikes, while Trump claimed: "If nothing else, I may have pushed Israel to act," the Guardian reports.
Rubio later softened his statements: "The bottom line is this: we, or rather the president, have decided that we will not allow ourselves to be attacked first."
Military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for the alleged attack on an Iranian girls' school that killed a large number of children on Saturday, but have not yet reached a final conclusion, the British Guardian reports, citing two US officials.
A girls' school in Minab, in southern Iran, was hit during the first day of US and Israeli attacks on the country.
Iran's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, said that 150 schoolgirls were killed in the attack.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said today that his country is increasingly "drifting into an abyss" and has been drawn into a conflict it "neither sought nor chose."
"Lebanon is facing a dangerous and difficult moment. Our country has been dragged into a devastating war that we neither asked for nor chose. It is a war that has been imposed on us," he said in a speech during a meeting with Arab and foreign ambassadors, the British Guardian reports.
He stressed that the Lebanese government's priority is to stop this war, and that it is the government's duty to protect the country and its people.
"Today, Lebanon is sliding further into the abyss. Its descent into further violence and chaos must stop. We continue to call for unity and responsibility," the Lebanese prime minister said.
He told those present that they must have seen how massive the forced displacement of Lebanese citizens from southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut was.
"The situation is serious and our responsibility is great. The consequences of this displacement on a political and humanitarian level could be unprecedented. A humanitarian catastrophe is looming over us," the prime minister added.
The Israeli military began strikes against the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah last week in response, it said, to Hezbollah's rocket fire into Israel after the start of a US-Israeli military operation against Iran on Saturday, February 28th.
For several days in a row, the Israeli army ordered the population in southern Lebanon as well as in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut to evacuate, which caused mass displacements and huge traffic jams in Beirut.
This morning, Israel carried out airstrikes on the Dahiyeh neighborhood in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, more than 120 people have been killed and around 700 injured in Israeli strikes so far.
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US President Donald Trump on Tuesday demanded Iran's "unconditional surrender", a dramatic escalation of his demands a week after the start of the war he launched with Israel, Reuters reports.
Trump made the announcement on social media just hours after Iran's president announced that unnamed countries had begun mediation efforts, one of the first signals of any diplomatic initiative to end the conflict.
"There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!" Trump wrote.
"After that, and the election of a GREAT and ACCEPTABLE leader (or leaders), we, along with our many wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better and stronger than ever before," Trump said.
On Thursday, Trump told Reuters in a telephone interview that he was demanding the right to help choose a new supreme leader of Iran, who would replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war.
Israel bombed the Lebanese capital Beirut today, after ordering an unprecedented evacuation of the city's entire southern suburbs, a major escalation of the war.
Beirut Southern Suburbs
He also launched a new wave of attacks on Iran, claiming that 50 of his warplanes targeted a bunker beneath Khamenei's destroyed compound in Tehran, which the Iranian leadership continues to use even after Khamenei's death.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian announced on the X network: "Some countries have started mediation efforts."
He did not specify which countries were involved or provide additional details.
"To be clear: we are committed to lasting peace in the region, but we have no reservations when it comes to defending the dignity and authority of our country. Mediation should be directed at those who have underestimated the Iranian people and fueled this conflict," he added.
Under the Iranian system, the president is subordinate to the supreme leader, but Pezeshkian now participates in the body that took over Khamenei's duties.
Iran has warned the Iraqi Kurdistan region that if any Kurdish groups enter Iran through its territory, "all facilities in the Kurdistan region will be targeted," the state-run Fars news agency reported.
According to Fars, Iran's defense council said that so far only bases belonging to the US, Israel and separatist groups in the region have been targeted.
It also warned that any aid Iran provides to Iraqi Kurdistan "in difficult times, such as ISIS attacks," would be suspended, CNN reports.
US allies among the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, who previously sought to stay out of a war with Iran, are now reconsidering that position after finding themselves the target of attacks from Tehran, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, CNN reports.
The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, which have defended their territories from Iranian attacks in recent weeks, are ready to play a more active role, including allowing the United States access to military bases they previously refused to make available, Hegseth said in two news conferences.
"What Iran is doing by attacking allied countries, which would otherwise want to stay out of the way, is actually pushing them into the American orbit," Hegseth said in a briefing with Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command.
"Now you have the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and others saying, 'We are with you. We will shoot with you, we will fly with you, we will defend with you. We will allow you more military bases,'" he added.
He made similar comments at a briefing on Wednesday, stating that Gulf states "now realize that this is something they have to deal with."
"They are reaching out to us at different levels – whether it's about offensive action, which they are already doing, or about additional access to bases and overflights that they are allowing us," he said.
The Gulf states condemned the Iranian attacks and said they reserved the right to respond, but did not indicate they were ready to change their stance on the war.
Following media reports on March 3 that Abu Dhabi might consider a more offensive approach towards Iran, the UAE said it had "not made any decision to change its defensive posture in response to repeated Iranian attacks."
Qatar warned that "a price must be paid" for the Iranian attacks, but stressed that it was not part of a campaign against Iran.
Tehran residents told CNN they felt fear and panic during what they said was the most intense night of airstrikes on the Iranian capital since the start of the war.
That, however, did not stop supporters of the Iranian government from marching through the city against the ongoing US-Israeli military campaign after Friday prayers at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said they had destroyed the underground bunker of slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, which they said was still being used by senior Iranian officials, The Guardian reports.
The IDF said about 50 Israeli Air Force fighter jets dropped approximately 100 bombs on a site they said was beneath Iran's "leadership complex" in Tehran. The bunker, they said, stretched beneath several streets and included "numerous entrances and meeting rooms for senior members of the Iranian terrorist regime."
"After the assassination of Khamenei, the complex continued to be used by senior officials of the Iranian regime," the statement said.
A senior Israeli official said the US-Israeli military campaign in Iran is going "much better than expected."
"No one could have expected such a smooth implementation. With such quantities of bombs being dropped and such a complex level of coordination – no one could have predicted such success so quickly," an unnamed official told The Times of Israel.
The official further described Israel's achievements as "epochal," the Guardian reports.
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