Iran-US war latest: American forces resume strikes after Trump promised Iran would ‘get a beating’

Iran is reportedly expected to receive within weeks a first shipment of up to 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air-defence missile launchers.

The purchase, valued at $60-70m, is one of Tehran’s largest-known efforts to strengthen its short-range air defences since the outbreak of its war ⁠with the US and Israel, which exposed gaps in Iran’s ability to protect military sites and strategic infrastructure.

The contract covers the purchase of between 300 and 400 man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS), including Chinese-made QW-12 and FN-16 missiles, Reuters reported, citing sources.

The deal was signed with Zhongqing Baoshang International Investment. Sources told Reuters the Hong Kong-based company was acting as an intermediary between the Iranian side and the Chinese supplier.

The US military has launched strikes against Iran in a “powerful response” to attempted attacks on American forces.

“U.S. forces began launching strikes against Iran at 8 p.m. ET today. The strikes are a powerful response to yesterday’s attempted Iranian attacks on U.S. forces based in the Middle East”, US Central Command wrote on X.

A man who fears persecution in Iran has spent 15 years in the UK battling a failed asylum claim, homeless and unable to lead a normal life, after repeated refusals by the Home Office to allow him to stay.

In the more than a decade he has been trapped in the asylum system, Mostafa Rahmani has not been allowed to work or been housed in Home Office accommodation – forced to depend on the kindness of friends to get by.

Mr Rahmani, now 41, he arrived in the UK from Iran in 2011 as a 26-year-old student looking to learn English. He came on a student visa, but claimed asylum a few days after arrival when he says Iranian security forces turned up at his family’s home in Tehran looking for him. He said that he had taken part in anti-government protests in 2011.

The Independent’s social affairs correspondent Holly Bancroft reports:

A US-brokered plan for Israel to withdraw gradually from occupied areas of southern Lebanon in exchange for the disarmament of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has started slower than expected.

The “pilot zone program” is the centrepiece of the US’ June 26 framework deal intended to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah, and establish peaceful ties between Israel and Lebanon.

Hezbollah still refuses to give up its weapons, while on the ground, the rollout of the first zone in the south Lebanese village of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh last week offered a glimpse of a strained and complex process that will be no easier to repeat elsewhere.

A senior Lebanese military official, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, told the Reuters news agency it had taken weeks of US-brokered negotiations with Israel and days of military operations to establish the first zone in a single village.

The agreement links Israel’s progressive withdrawal to the “verified disarmament” of Hezbollah — which is not a party to the deal, has refused to give up its arsenal, and has raised the prospect of internal strife if the state tries to disarm it by force.

The US military’s top commander in the Middle East has warned personnel that cellphone videos being shared online by troops are helping to target US bases.

Some deployed troops could soon be ordered to surrender their phones, in a crackdown on mobile communications that would add a new dimension to the conflict for the thousands in the region, many of whom still rely on phones to periodically message loved ones and assure them they are well.

Admiral Brad Cooper, in a previously unreported letter, said Iran was benefiting from being able to see the success or failure of its strikes in near real-time by searching news reports or online posts by journalists referencing “reactions, photos, and footage from the cellphones of our troops”, according to the Reuters news agency.

“The direct, unavoidable cost of this open-source intelligence could be measured in the lives of American service members and civilian residents in targeted Gulf countries,” Cooper, head of US Central Command, wrote in his July 28 letter.

He called on troops to “redouble our focus on operational security,” without prescribing specific steps in the memo.

A Norwegian teenager was on Wednesday convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in Britain having been recruited by a Swedish organised crime group which prosecutors said was used by the Iranian government.

Johannes Natland, now 19, was arrested in a hotel room in Huddersfield in northern England in March last year in possession of two firearms and ammunition.

Prosecutors said Natland had been recruited by the Foxtrot Network, a Swedish organised crime group used by the Iranian state which has been sanctioned by Britain and the United States.

Fears have mounted over the world’s two major wars converging after Ukraine attacked an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea, with Tehran vowing to respond.

Iran claimed one sailor was killed and another injured in the Ukrainian attack, as the ministry summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran to protest what it described as a “hostile and criminal” act.

Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday the reported strike on a commercial vessel “cannot go unanswered” in a call with the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Maryam Zakir-Hussain reports: