Israel makes an attempt to assassinate Iran’s intelligence chief in Tehran airstrike: Live updates

The Israeli miliary has targeted Iran’s intelligence minister, Esmaeil Khatib, in an overnight airstrike in Tehran, it has been reported.

Israeli intelligence sources told media outlets they believe the strike on Khatib was successful but there is no official confirmation of his death as the military continues its pursuit to target high-ranking regime officials.

The strike was first reported by Iran International, and shortly afterward confirmed by an Israeli official, the Times of Israel reported.

Khatib was listed by the US State Department as one of nine ‘key leaders’ within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps they wanted information on with a reward of up to $10 million

by David Patrikarakos

They finally got Ali Larijani. Yesterday morning, Israel’s defence minister said its military had killed Iran’s security chief in a strike.

Last week, Larijani appeared in public at Iran’s Quds Day march. It was a calculated provocation. Surrounded by civilians, including many children, he gambled – correctly, it turned out – that neither Washington nor Tel Aviv would strike him there.

He had, though, less than a week to live. This is without doubt the most significant assassination since the hit on former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on February 28, the war’s opening day.

Larijani, 67, was one of the most intelligent, competent and powerful men – and they are all men – in the Islamic Republic’s leadership. Speaker of Parliament for 12 years, former chief nuclear negotiator and most recently Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, he sat at the heart of the regime’s war command structure.

He was central to military strategy, intelligence coordination and contingency planning for the regime’s survival. After Khamenei’s death, figures like Larijani became indispensable to keeping the system intact.

His loss is seismic.

Russia, China and Iran are the biggest threats to Sweden, the Swedish Security Service (SAPO) has said in its annual report on threats facing the country.

The security police has warned in recent years of rising threats, above all from a Russian state increasingly prone to risky ventures in support of its war in Ukraine, including through destabilizing hybrid attacks around Europe.

Iran has also long been labeled a serious threat and authorities have noted how criminal networks in Sweden, which has spent the past decade dealing with a wave of gang-related crime, have been used by state actors to carry out violent acts.

‘The US-Israeli military operation against Iran, and the countermeasures carried out by Iran, have increased the threat against American, Israeli and Jewish targets in Sweden,’ Security Service Chief Charlotte von Essen said in the report.

Iran will today hold a funeral for its security chief Ali Larijani as it vowed revenge, firing off a wave of missiles at Israel after it killed the powerful figure in an air strike.

According to Iran’s Fars and Tasnim news agencies, funerals for Larijani and another powerful figure killed by Israel, Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij paramilitary force, will take place from 10:30 GMT in Tehran.

Their deaths were announced by Iran last night hours after Israel declared they had been assassinated.

Larijani is the most prominent figure of the Islamic republic killed since Israel and the United States launched their attacks on Iran on February 28, killing supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and igniting a war across the Middle East.

Turkey’s defence ministry has said NATO is deploying a new Patriot missile battery at Incirlik air base, just days after a third ballistic missile from Iran was shot down.

‘In addition to national-level measures taken to ensure the security of our airspace and our citizens, another Patriot system, commissioned by Allied Air Command in Ramstein/Germany, is being deployed in Adana, in addition to the existing Spanish Patriot system stationed there,’ the ministry said at a weekly briefing.

Turkey, which has NATO’s second-largest army and neigbhbours Iran, said last week the alliance had deployed a Patriot system to its southeastern Malatya province, near a NATO radar base, as part of steps to boost air defences against missile threats from the Iran war.

Adana hosts Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base, where personnel from the United States, Qatar, Spain, and Poland are located, as well as Turkish troops.

Turkey, an emerging leader in the global defence industry, lacks its own fully fledged air defences despite development efforts, and has relied on NATO air defences stationed in the eastern Mediterranean Sea to intercept three missiles it says were fired from Iran since the war began.

It would be unreasonable to expect the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah while the country is being bombed, a French special envoy has said.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, France’s special envoy for Lebanon, said only a negotiation would resolve the crisis.

‘Israel occupied Lebanon for a very long time and failed to eradicate Hezbollah’s military capacity. Therefore, they cannot now ask the Lebanese government to do that job in three days under bombardment,’ he told French radio.

On Monday, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said Europe should back his country’s fight against Hezbollah, as Israeli forces carried out ground operations in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s government said more than one million people have been displaced in two weeks of fighting, while Israel’s defence minister warned that those who left their homes in Lebanon could not return until northern Israel was secure.

Iranian drones and missiles continue to threaten the Gulf countries as Tehran presses on with its retaliatory campaign against its closest neighbours following the start of its war with the US and Israel.

Energy facilities, airports, US military bases and popular tourist destinations such as Dubai have been targeted over the past three weeks.

Here’s the latest in the Gulf:

• Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has today said it has intercepted two drones targeting the diplomatic quarter of its capital Riyadh. The drones were downed as they attempted ‘to approach the embassy quarter’, the defence ministry posted on X.

The authorities had earlier said they intercepted several drones over the country’s Eastern Province, as well as a ballistic missile close to the major Prince Sultan air base housing US forces south east of Riyadh.

An Iranian projectile hit near Australia’s military headquarters for the Middle East in the UAE today but caused no injuries, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

It landed near the Al Minhad base. ‘I can confirm that no Australian personnel were injured, and everyone is absolutely safe,’ Albanese told reporters. The projectile caused ‘minor damage’ to an accommodation block and a medical facility.

Al Minhad Air Base – just 24 kilometres (15 miles) south of Dubai – has hosted Australian forces since 2003 and serves as the primary hub for the country’s operations in the Middle East.

Qatar’s defence ministry said it has today intercepted a missile attack as blasts were heard in Doha.

‘Armed forces intercepted missile attack which targeted State of Qatar,’ the ministry of defence said in a statement, released shortly after an AFP journalist in the capital heard several blasts.

Oil prices sank today after Iraq said it had resumed exports through Turkey, avoiding the effectively closed Strait of Hormuz.

The drop in crude, which saw US benchmark West Texas Intermediate plunge more than four percent, came even as the United States hit Iranian missile sites near the key Strait of Hormuz and Tehran struck crude-producing Gulf neighbours.

While the war in the Middle East shows no sign of ending and oil has stuck around $100 a barrel – threatening to fuel a fresh inflation spike – equity traders have shifted back into the market after the steep losses suffered at the outset of the conflict.

However, analysts warned the positive mood could fade if the crisis drags on and energy costs spiral with Hormuz – through which a fifth of global oil and gas flows – virtually closed by Iran as an economic weapon.

That comes with central banks weighing the need for lower interest rates to support the economy and the prospect of rising prices, which would need higher borrowing costs.

Lebanon said Israel struck central Beirut without warning today, killing at least 12 people.

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war on March 2 when Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel in response to US-Israeli strikes that killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Israel has responded with intense strikes in multiple Lebanese regions and ground operations in the south, and has hit central Beirut several times, with and without warning.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said a strike in the early hours of Wednesday hit an apartment in the central Zuqaq al-Blat neighbourhood, a densely populated area close to the government’s headquarters and several embassies.

It said the strike occurred near where the Israeli military last week hit a Beirut branch of the Hezbollah-linked financial firm Al-Qard Al-Hassan.

In last week’s strike, the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning in advance, but no such warning was given before the latest raid.

Iran has executed a man convicted of spying for Israel, the first to be announced since the war with Israel and the United States broke out.

Iran’s judiciary said the man had been providing images and information including sensitive locations to Mossad officers.

He was identified as Kouroush Keyvani who was arrested during Iran’s 12-day war with Israel in June. The United States briefly joined with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

It listed details of his meetings with agents from Israel’s Mossad spy agency and said he received training in ‘six European countries and in Tel Aviv.’

First responders inspect damage after a missile strike in Ramat Gan

Images shared by Israeli emergency services Magen David Adom showed destruction in multiple locations across the country today.

They include cars on fire, destroyed vehicles and rubble with Israeli bomb disposal experts ‘operating at several impact sites within the (Tel Aviv) district’.

The national railway company said in a statement posted online that shrapnel caused damage to platforms at Tel Aviv’s main station, announcing that trains were ‘temporarily suspended across the country’.

In the morning, most train services resumed, the company said in an update.

The military shared footage of Home Front Command teams at a train station, showing shattered glass at a platform and some damage to train windows.

In a separate statement, the Home Front Command said its search and rescue teams were ‘operating at several sites in central Israel where reports of impacts have been received’.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement they had launched missiles at central Israel ‘in revenge for the blood of martyr Dr Ali Larijani and his companions’.

An elderly couple have been killed near Tel Aviv today following an Iranian missile barrage aimed at Israel.

Authorities reported falling munitions had hit multiple sites in central Israel in the overnight offensive that triggered air raid sirens across the area.

The latest deaths took the toll from missile attacks on Israel since the start of the Middle East war late last month to 14 people.

Police spokesman Dean Elsdunne said that, according to an initial assessment of the deadly impact, a residential building was hit by a cluster bomb in Ramat Gan, a city just outside Tel Aviv.

Cluster munitions, which Iran and Israel have previously accused each other of using, explode in mid-air and scatter bomblets across a wide area.

The munition ‘collapsed the roof in on an elderly couple that were in their room. Unfortunately, this couple did not go to the safe room when the alarm sounded, and as a result, we have this unfortunate tragedy,’ Elsdunne said.