Al Jazeera

By Enes Abuomer, Lyndal Rowlands and Priyanka Shankar

    The US military says it launched another wave of strikes on Iran, with Iranian media reporting explosions on Qeshm Island, Bandar Abbas and Chabahar.

    Iran launches retaliatory attacks against what it says are US assets in the region, including Kuwait and Jordan, while Bahrain activated alarms over air attacks.

    The US military also says it has disabled an oil tanker attempting to sail towards an Iranian port in the Strait of Hormuz by firing Hellfire missiles.

    The US says Lebanon and Israel have agreed on the structure and guidelines for a limited Israeli troop withdrawal from southern Lebanon following talks in Rome.

IRGC says no casualties in Pakdasht and Parchin

    The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says the sounds of explosions reported in the city of Pakdasht, near the capital, Tehran, were caused by air defence operations.

    It said there were no casulaties in Pakdasht or in Parchin, an Iranian military complex near Tehran.

Airport in Iran’s Semnan targeted in air strikes

    The IRIB is reporting that parts of Semnan airport have been targeted in “enemy air strikes”.

    It cited a spokesperson for the north-central province’s crisis headquarters.

    The spokesperson said emergency services were responding and that no residential areas in Semnan’s cities or villages had been attacked.

US-Iran escalation makes mediators’ work ‘more and more difficult’

By Zein Basravi

Reporting from Doha, Qatar

    As the US continued to carry out strikes on Iran, Iran carried out retaliatory strikes – on Wednesday and into early Thursday morning – against neighbouring Gulf Arab states hosting thousands of US military personnel.

    Iran said those attacks were valid because it was targeting US assets, while Gulf Arab states are condemning Iran, saying the attacks violate international law.

    Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain all came under attack on Wednesday.

    Kuwait said that it intercepted four cruise missiles and 21 drones from Iran on Wednesday and into early Thursday morning.

    Kuwait and Bahrain both said that they were continuing to confront hostile projectiles coming towards them from Iran, with air raid sirens and warnings going off in those countries.

    This is making the task of mediators much more difficult.

    As long as the US continues to carry out strikes on Iran, and as long as Iran continues to retaliate against US assets in neighbouring Arab countries, the work of mediators becomes more and more difficult.

What we know about the latest round of attacks between the US and Iran

    The US military says it has completed another wave of strikes against Iran, including in Bandar Abbas and Greater Tunb Island, to degrade the country’s ability to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

    Iranian media reported explosions on Qeshm Island and the cities of Bandar Abbas, Sirik, Chabahar, Konarak and Rask. US air strikes also hit the central city of Khondab, while residents in the western city of Khorramabad reported hearing two explosions.

    Air defence systems were also activated in the capital, Tehran, and nearby Pakdasht.

    Iran’s army and the IRGC, meanwhile, claimed retaliatory attacks on US forces in Kuwait and Jordan, and said that an MQ-9 drone was downed over the Iranian city of Andimeshk. Sirens have sounded in Bahrain, too.

    Earlier, the US military – which has reinstated a blockade on Iranian ports – said it carried out a missile attack on a tanker heading to an Iranian port and redirected two other ships.

    At least 35 people have been killed and more than 300 wounded in the ongoing US attacks, according to Iran’s Health Ministry.

Trump says diplomacy still possible, but commits to building military pressure on Iran

By Rosiland Jordan

Reporting from Washington DC, US

    The US president has said several times this week that he is willing to expand US military action against Iran, not just targeting military facilities – including storage depots, missile launch sites, and vessels that are part of the Iranian navy – but he has also raised the spectre of targeting what can be considered civilian targets, such as power plants, bridges, and other parts of Iranian infrastructure.

    That is legally very questionable, and has brought criticism against the Trump administration before, earlier in this war.

    But Trump says he is committed to making the Iranians actually agree to a deal that will ensure not just US national security but global security as well.

    One of the Trump administration’s main tenets is that it does not want to see Iran develop a nuclear weapons arsenal. It also does not want to see Iran continue to carry out what the US calls human rights violations: arresting, punishing, and killing people for expressing political views not in sync with those of the central government in Tehran.

    So, while Trump says there is still a possibility for diplomacy, right now, his commitment, he says, is to ratcheting up military activity against the Iranian government.

Could the US take control of Iran’s southern islands

By Nils Adler

    US forces have struck Iran’s Qeshm, Kish and Abu Musa islands in recent days as part of an escalating campaign that has also pounded port cities along Iran’s southern coast, including Bandar Abbas.

The attacks have revived a question that has hung over the US-Israel war on Iran since its early weeks: Is Washington preparing to seize Iranian territory.

A ‘shift in the party’ as ‘record’ number of Democrats vote to end US Israeli military funding

    As we’ve been reporting, some 103 of 212 House Democrats voted in favour of a bill to end US aid to Israel.

    Congresswoman Ilhan Omar hailed the vote as unprecedented.

    “A record number of Democrats” voted in support of the amendment “because millions of people spoke out, organised, and refused to stay silent”, she wrote on X. “Our movement is making a difference. Keep organizing. Keep building power.”

    Congresswoman Summer Lee said the vote signalled a “shift in the party”, but that it was “still unconscionable for any member of Congress to justify sending any aid to fuel Israel’s genocide”.

    Meanwhile, Congressman Ro Khanna said he wanted to recognise the “courage” of former lawmakers Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, who lost their seats for taking the same stand two years ago.

    “As a colleague told me, Black martyrdom is normalized in America,” he added.

Iran claims drone attack on ‘US facilities’ at Jordan’s Azraq base

    Iran’s army says it targeted the US military’s communications systems, a fixed radar site and fuel depots at Jordan’s Azraq airbase with attack drones.

    In a statement carried by the Fars news agency, the army said the attack formed the ninth phase of its “Saeqeh” operation and was launched in response to recent attacks on Iran, including a strike on the Bampur barracks in Iranshahr, which the army said killed seven soldiers.

What’s the significance of the US attacks on Greater Tunb Island

By Tohid Asadi

Reporting from Tehran, Iran

    Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa are three important islands in the Strait of Hormuz. There are controversies about Iran trying to assert sovereignty over these three islands.

    Like other islands in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz, such as Qeshm Island, their significance lies in the very fact that whoever controls those islands has an upper hand when it comes to control and authority over the Strait of Hormuz. And we know that Iran has time and again put emphasis on its authority and control over the strait.

    Militarily speaking, these islands are important as they also host Iranian military infrastructure. They are part of a layered defence system, and Greater Tunb can be considered as a forward military outpost, which again adds another layer of significance to the island.

    All in all, we know that Iran is trying to flex its muscles over the Strait of Hormuz. They are talking about a new management coordinated with the Omani side, and they are saying that ships and vessels are now not allowed to transit through this geostrategically significant chokepoint.