Iran struck the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia’s capital with a drone early Tuesday, as it continued to target areas around the region.
Across Tehran, explosions rang out overnight as the U.S. and Israel pounded Iran with airstrikes. Iran and its allies have hit back against Israel, neighboring Gulf states and targets critical to the world’s oil and natural gas production.
The conflict has also spread to Lebanon, where the Iranian-supported militant group Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel on Monday, prompting Israel to retaliate.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military hit Beirut with more airstrikes and said it had moved additional troops into southern Lebanon and taken new positions on several strategic points close to the border.
Trump says ‘someone from within’ Iranian regime best choice to take power: President Donald Trump on Tuesday said someone from within Iranian regime might be best choice to take power once US-Israel campaign is finished.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump said Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince of Iran’s last shah, is not someone that his administration has considered in depth to take over leadership in Iran.
Trump said the US would continue its campaign in Iran. “The big scale hitting goes now.”
“They’re going to be in for a lot of hurt,” Trump said, “first we have to finish off the military.”
Meanwhile, Trump lashed out at Britain and Spain for not fully backing his attack on Iran, as he threatened to end “all trade” with Spain.
“I’m not happy with the UK,” Trump said, as he said of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
Trump also threatened to cut off trade with Spain, whose left-wing government refused to let US planes use its bases to attack Iran and objected to raising defense funding as part of NATO.
“Spain has been terrible,” Trump told reporters as he met German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
“We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain.”
Israel bombs council choosing Iran’s next supreme leader: The Israeli air force on Tuesday struck the building housing Iran’s Council of Experts in the holy city of Qom in an attempt to disrupt the process of appointing a new supreme leader, an Israeli defense official said.
The Israeli defense official said the strike took place while votes were being counted. It isn’t clear how many of the council’s 88 members were in the building at the time, or the extent of the damage.
“We wanted to prevent them from picking a new supreme leader,” the official said.
Iran hits US Embassy in Riyadh: An attack from two drones on the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh caused a “limited fire,” according to Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry, and the embassy urged Americans to avoid the compound. It followed an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait. Both embassies said they were closed to the public.
US State Department ordered the evacuation of non-emergency personnel and family in Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.