An oil tanker burns after being hit by an Iranian strike in the ship-to-ship transfer zone at Khor al-Zubair port near Basra, Iraq, late Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo)

The Associated Press

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei issued his first statement on the war Thursday, saying Iran should close the Strait of Hormuz and keep attacking its Gulf Arab neighbors as leverage. Khamenei also called on people in Gulf countries to “shut down” U.S. bases, saying promised U.S. protection is “nothing more than a lie.”

An Iranian ambassador said Khamenei was injured in the war’s opening salvo, which the Iranian leader said killed his wife, one of his sisters, his niece and his father, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

As American and Israeli strikes pound the Islamic Republic and Iran attacks Persian Gulf shipping and energy infrastructure with no sign of an end to the war, oil prices have soared back above $100 a barrel.

U.S. President Donald Trump promised to “finish the job,” even as Iran is “virtually destroyed.” The first week of war cost the United States $11.3 billion, according to the Pentagon. The U.N. refugee agency says up to 3.2 million people in Iran have been displaced, and authorities in Lebanon say 800,000 have been forced from their homes as Israel’s military destroys buildings linked to Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.

Saudi Arabia says its air defenses downed 38 drones in just a few hours

The defense ministry said early today that they were headed toward the kingdom’s Eastern Province. It was a larger than usual number of aerial threats for the country.

Sites in Saudi Arabia including the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, oil infrastructure and a military base hosting U.S. troops have been targeted as the Iran war rages on.

● Rescue efforts are underway after a U.S. military refueling plane went down in Iraq, U.S. Central Command said Thursday,

The KC-135 aircraft is part of the operation against Iran, but the crash was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire, the military said.

The refueling plane is part of the operation against Iran and went down in western Iraq, but it was not immediately clear if there were any casualties.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said in a statement that two aircraft were involved in the incident. One landed safely, while the other went down in western Iraq.

A U.S. official who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the developing situation said at least five crew members were aboard.

The KC-135 tankers typically have a crew of three. It was not immediately clear what role the extra crew members were performing aboard the flight.

● The French president said a French soldier has been killed in attack in Iraq

The attack targeted Irbil in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, President Emmanuel Macron said Friday on the social platform X.

Macron identified the soldier as Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion of the 7th Battalion of Chasseurs Alpins from Varces.

“To his family, to his brothers in arms, I want to express all the affection and solidarity of the nation,” Macron said. “Several of our soldiers have been wounded. France stands by their side and with their loved ones.”

France said earlier that six soldiers were hurt in a drone attack in Irbil. French troops are in Iraq as part of a multinational counterterrorism mission supporting local forces in their fight against Islamic State militants.

● The Trump administration is trying to make up for oil that can’t pass through the Strait of Hormuz because of the Iran war.

The new Treasury Department exemption applies only to Russian oil already at sea.

Last week analysts estimated there were about 125 million barrels loaded on tankers. To put that in perspective, about 20 million barrels of oil per day usually pass through the strait, according to the International Energy Agency.

LATEST REPORTS OF LIVE FIRE

● Intense airstrikes struck early Friday around Iran’s capital, Tehran, as well as outlying areas. was not immediately clear what had been targeted.

● Bahrain sounded sirens warning of an incoming Iranian attack.

● Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry said it downed 28 drones after they entered the kingdom’s airspace.

● The U.S. Treasury Department announced Thursday that it was taking steps to further ease sanctions on Russian oil as crude prices surge during the Iran war.

The agency said it was granting a license that authorizes the delivery and sale of some sanctioned Russia crude oil and petroleum products for the next month.

Trump signaled this week that he would take further action to ease restrictions on sanctioned oil to help make for the loss of oil flowing to the market because of the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

● Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed 15 Friday.

One attack on the village of Erkay, in the Sidon district, killed nine people, including five children, Lebanon’s health ministry said, adding that seven others were wounded.

An AP photographer who visited the scene found several buildings flattened and widespread destruction. Rescue workers searched through the rubble.

Two other Israeli strikes on separate towns in southern Lebanon killed six more, the ministry said.

Israel’s renewed offensive in Lebanon began March 2 after Hezbollah launched rockets toward northern Israel during the early days of the war triggered by the U.S. and Israel’s attack on Iran.

● Pentagon has conceded it’s reworking how it wants to handle efforts to minimize civilian casualties.

The Defense Department said in a statement that its efforts to reduce civilian harm are “currently undergoing a strategic reassessment.”

to inform its future reorganization.”

AP has reported that outdated intelligence likely led to the United States carrying out a missile strike on an elementary school in Iran that killed over 165 people, many of them children.

The Pentagon did not address media reports and critics who said that the military slashed the size of its mission central to civilian protection and that the emphasis on updating intelligence had come to a near halt.

The statement did acknowledge, however, that a “reorganization” was being conducted and that functions to reduce civilian casualties have been “streamlined” directly into the operations of combatant commands.

Iranian diplomat says Tehran is not ruling out closing the Strait of Hormuz

“Iran has an inherent right to preserve the peace and security in the Strait of Hormuz, and it is our responsibility,” Amir Saeid Iravani, Tehran’s envoy to the U.N., told reporters Thursday.

His comments come a few hours after Iran’s new supreme leader issued his first statement on the war, saying that the leverage of closing the strategic waterway should be used in the ongoing war with Israel and the U.S.

Iran’s attacks on shipping during the war have effectively closed the strait.

Israeli strikes on checkpoints in Iran aim to weaken state control, monitoring group says

At least 18 instances in which Israel struck checkpoints operated by Iran’s paramilitary Basij forces, mostly in the capital, were documented on Wednesday alone by Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, the U.S-based group known as ACLED.

ACLED said the strikes may be aimed at stoking unrest among the security forces, who play a key role in suppressing dissent.

Since the start of the war, ACLED said at least 30% of its recorded U.S. and Israeli strikes have targeted Iran’s system of internal control, including police stations and sites used by intelligence and Revolutionary Guard forces involved in domestic security.

Israel’s prime minister said Thursday that his country was trying to create the conditions for Iranians to rise up against the government. However, hundreds of thousands of people work for the internal security forces across the country, ACLED said.

Stocks sink worldwide as Iran war rages on

With no clear end in sight, the war with Iran sent oil prices back to $100 per barrel on Thursday, and stocks sank worldwide.

The S&P 500 fell 1.5% and resumed its sharp swings following a couple days of relative calm. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 739 points, or 1.6%, and the Nasdaq composite lost 1.8%.

The center of action was again the oil market, where the price of a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 9.2% to settle at $100.46. Worries are worsening that the war could block the production of oil in the Persian Gulf for a long time and cause a debilitating surge of inflation for the global economy.

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Damage to historical sites in Iran raises alarm about war’s impact on protected places

At least four of Iran’s nearly 30 historical sites, including palaces and an ancient mosque, have sustained damage from U.S. and Israeli strikes during the war.

The speed and extent of the damage made Iran and Lebanon so concerned that they sent a request this week to the United Nations’ cultural agency, UNESCO, to add more sites to its enhanced protection list.

UNESCO said it shared site coordinates with combatants beforehand to help avoid damage, but warned that modern conflicts increasingly endanger civilians, infrastructure and cultural heritage.

One nonprofit group has pointed to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth saying last week that America’s approach to the war would not include “stupid rules of engagement.”

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Israel killed top Iranian nuclear scientists, Netanyahu says

Israeli attacks killed one senior scientist involved in developing nuclear weapons and hit several other Irani scientists, the prime minister said as he took questions Thursday from reporters for the first time since this war began.

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This item has been updated to correct that Netanyahu said Israeli attacks killed a top Iranian nuclear scientist, not multiple scientists.

Iranian ambassador says new supreme leader sustained minor injuries in strike that killed his father

“It is not a serious injury and he is recovering,” Mir Masoud Hosseinian, Iran’s ambassador to Tunisia, told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday.

Iranian officials have released little information about Khamenei’s condition, although an Israeli intelligence assessment suggests he was wounded in the war’s opening strikes. He did not appear on television Thursday when his first statement as supreme leader was read by a news anchor.

Hosseinian also denounced the countries hosting U.S. bases in the Gulf and said they had exposed themselves to the conflict.

“We will decide how this war ends,” he said.

Netanyahu: ‘We are creating the optimal conditions for the fall of the regime’

At a news conference Thursday night, the Israeli prime minister denounced Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, as a “puppet of the Revolutionary Guards” who cannot appear in public.

And he addressed the Iranian people, saying the moment for a “new path of freedom” was approaching and Israel stands with them.

“But at the end of the day, it depends on you. It is in your hands,” he said.

Netanyahu says the U.S.-Israeli strikes against the country are an effort to give Iranians “the space needed to go out to the streets.”

Israel and the U.S. have given conflicting answers about what exactly the war’s objectives are and what the endgame is.

As Netanyahu was speaking, Israel’s military said it had detected a new barrage of missiles launched from Iran toward Israel.

No significant injuries to US personnel after attack on base in Iraq, official says

An attack on a base in northern Iraq resulted in no significant injuries to American personnel, a U.S. defense official said Thursday.

The official, who wasn’t authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the U.S. personnel are still on duty after Wednesday’s attack.

British military officials said earlier Thursday that several U.S. personnel were injured in drone strikes at a base in Irbil that houses both British and American troops.

The U.K. and U.S. military officials did not specify if the wounded were American troops.

• Ben Finley

The islands off Iran’s southern coast are key to its economy and security

Iran’s parliament speaker warned on Thursday that attacks on the Persian Gulf islands on Iran’s southern maritime frontier would provoke a new level of retaliation, underscoring how central they are to the country’s economy and security.

In a social media post, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Iran “will abandon all restraint” if the islands come under attack and said Trump will be responsible for “the blood of American soldiers.”

Kharg Island, Qeshm Island, and the tiny islands of Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunb carry outsized importance because of their oil facilities and strategic location. “A direct strike would immediately halt the bulk of Iran’s crude exports, likely triggering severe retaliation,” JPMorgan said in an investment note this week