War in the Middle East: latest developments

Here are the latest events in the Middle East war on Friday:

Guards warn against protests

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned that if protests broke out in the country, their response would be “stronger” than in January, when thousands were killed.

Two dead in Oman

Two people died after security forces intercepted a drone near an industrial area in northern Oman, state media said.

Blasts shake Tehran

Large explosions shook Tehran, with the unusually intense blasts rumbling the homes of AFP journalists located several kilometres apart in the north and centre of the capital.

200 Iran targets hit

The Israeli military said it had struck more than 200 targets in western and central Iran over the past day, including missile launchers and defence systems.

Embassies in Saudi targeted

Saudi forces intercepted a drone targeting Riyadh’s diplomatic quarter housing foreign embassies, the defence ministry said.

Beirut strikes

An Israeli strike hit a member of Iran-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon’s capital, the military said.

Israel continued striking Beirut early Friday as it threatened to expand operations and seize territory in Lebanon if the militant group Hezbollah did not stop its attacks.

Dubai building hit

A building in central Dubai was hit by debris from an intercepted attack, the government media office said, after blasts shook the Middle East financial hub.

Explosions rattled buildings in Dubai and a large cloud of smoke hung over a central area of the city, AFP correspondents said.

Tehran strikes

Iran’s Fars news agency said US and Israeli strikes hit parts of Tehran, adding that homes shook from the blasts.

French soldier killed

A French soldier was killed in an attack in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, President Emmanuel Macron said, the first French military death in the war.

Since the start of the war, multiple attacks attributed to pro-Iranian factions have targeted the region where foreign forces are based as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition.

New attacks on Israel

The Israeli military said that Iran fired a new barrage of missiles toward Israel, with emergency services reporting that two people were injured in the country’s north.

Saudi intercepts drones

Saudi Arabia intercepted dozens of drones entering its airspace, the defence ministry said, as Iran kept up attacks on oil-rich Gulf countries in response to US-Israeli strikes.

“Twelve drones were intercepted and destroyed after entering Saudi airspace,” a ministry spokesperson posted on X, after authorities reported at least 16 other drones were also shot down.

US plane crashes in Iraq

An American KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq while a second plane involved in the incident landed safely, the US military said.

“One of the aircraft went down in western Iraq, and the second landed safely. This was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” said US Central Command, which is responsible for American forces in the Middle East.

Iran vows vengeance

Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, whose father and other family members were killed in the opening strikes of the war on February 28, vowed to avenge the Iranian casualties in the conflict, according to a statement read by a presenter on state television on Thursday.

Khamenei himself was wounded in the strikes, according to some Iranian officials and state TV. His whereabouts and details of his physical condition are unknown, prompting Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to call on him to “show his face.”

Trump: war moving ‘rapidly’

US President Donald Trump told reporters the war against Iran was moving “very rapidly.”

“It’s doing very well, our military is unsurpassed,” he said at the White House.

Israel strikes Basij

Israel’s military said it had struck checkpoints set up in the Iranian capital Tehran by the Basij paramilitary force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as part of efforts to undermine control by the authorities.

Later, the Israeli military said it launched a new broad wave of strikes in Tehran on Thursday evening.

Iraq-Syria border strikes

Air strikes killed at least 11 Iran-backed fighters in Iraq on Thursday near the Iraqi-Syrian border and in the capital Baghdad, senior security and armed faction officials told AFP.

Iraqi authorities denounced the “blatant attacks” on bases that belong to the Hashed al-Shaabi, a former paramilitary group now integrated into the regular army, which also encompasses brigades from Iran-backed armed groups. (AFP)