Israel targets Iran's security forces

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Mar 4: The United States and Israel hit Iran's capital and other cities in multiple airstrikes on Wednesday, the fifth day of the war with Iran. Israel targeted the Iranian leadership and security forces as the Islamic Republic responded with missile barrages and drone attacks on Israel and across the region, report agencies.

Tehran residents woke to the sound of dawn blasts, and Iranian state television showed the ruins of building in the center of the capital. The Shiite seminary city of Qom and multiple other cities were targeted.

With fighter jets roaring overhead, those still in Tehran looked anxiously to the skies. One man, who ran a clothing shop, said he didn't know what to do.

The Israeli military said one of its F-35 stealth fighter jets shot down a piloted Iranian Air Force YAK-130 fighter over Tehran on Wednesday. It also said Israeli air defenses had been activated to intercept Iranian missiles fired at targets around the country, with explosions heard around Jerusalem.

A US submarine sank an Iranian warship off the southern coast of Sri Lanka, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday, dramatically widening Washington's pursuit of the Iranian navy.

Sri Lanka's deputy foreign minister said at least 80 people were killed in the attack on the frigate IRIS Dena, which was heading back to Iran from an eastern Indian port.

"An American submarine sank an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters," Hegseth said at the Pentagon. "Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. Quiet death".

Meanwhile, Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Iran's late Supreme Leader, has survived the US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran in which his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed, two Iranian sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

Mojtaba is seen by the establishment as a possible successor to his father, the sources said.

A mid-ranking cleric with close ties to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, hardliner Mojtaba is one of the most influential figures in the Iranian clerical establishment. He has for years been seen as one of the top candidates to succeed his father.

"He (Mojtaba) is alive ... he was not in Tehran when the Supreme Leader was killed," one of the sources said.

With Iran's stranglehold on tanker movement through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which about a fifth of the world's oil is shipped, Brent crude prices hit $84 a barrel, up more than 15% since the start of the conflict and at its highest price since July 2024. Global stock markets have been hammered over worries that the spike in oil prices may grind down the world economy and sap corporate profits.

The American Embassy in Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Consulate in the United Arab Emirates came under drone attacks Tuesday, and the U.S. State Department said Wednesday it had authorized non-emergency government personnel to evacuate the kingdom.

U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, said Iran has launched more than 500 ballistic missiles and 2,000 drones so far. He described the American strikes in the opening hours of the campaign as "nearly double the scale" of the initial attacks during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"We've already struck nearly 2,000 targets, with more than 2,000 munitions. We have severely degraded Iran's air defenses and destroyed hundreds of Iran's ballistic missiles, launchers and drones," Cooper said in a prerecorded message shared online Wednesday.

Five days into a war that U.S. President Donald Trump suggested could last a month or longer, nearly 800 people have been killed in Iran, including some Trump said he had considered as possible future leaders of the country.

The US military has destroyed 17 Iranian naval vessels, including its most operational submarine, as part of the ongoing Operation Epic Fury, a senior US commander said Tuesday.

Admiral Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command, said in a video posted on X that the campaign, now in its fourth day, has targeted nearly 2,000 sites using over 2,000 munitions. More than 50,000 US troops and over 200 fighter aircraft, including B-1 and B-2 bombers, are involved, reports CNN.

"Today, there is not a single Iranian ship underway in the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, or Gulf of Oman, and we will not stop," Cooper said.

He added that Iran has retaliated with over 500 ballistic missiles and more than 2,000 drones, though its ability to strike US forces is "declining." Cooper described the strikes as "uncontested surgical" operations aimed at neutralizing threats to US forces and international shipping.

The operation comes amid the broader US-Israel campaign against Iran, which has drawn international scrutiny over its scale and potential consequences for regional stability.

A suspected Iranian drone struck the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station located at the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.

The source added that there was no indication the CIA station was the intended target.

The Washington Post reported that a State Department alert said the building sustained structural damage. The attack comes amid escalating strikes across the Middle East following US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran on Saturday.

The US Embassy in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, is among several American facilities affected. Saudi Arabia's Defence Ministry said two drones hit the embassy, causing a small fire and some material damage.

Following the incident, the US mission in Saudi Arabia warned American citizens to avoid the embassy until further notice due to the threat of attacks. Routine and emergency consular services were also cancelled on Tuesday.

In a separate alert, the mission cautioned that "there is a threat of imminent missile and UAV attacks over Dhahran" and advised people not to visit the US Consulate.

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it targeted northern Israel's Haifa naval base on Tuesday in response to the Israeli military's ongoing strikes against the Iran-back movement's strongholds in Lebanon, including the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Israel carried out successive air raids for a second day on the south of the country as well some suburbs in its capital after issuing evacuation warnings to residents.

In a statement, Hezbollah said it targeted the Haifa naval base with "a barrage of high-quality missiles" at 8:00 pm local time (1800 GMT).

An air strike hit a military base in southern Iraq housing the Iran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah group on Tuesday, two sources from the armed faction said.

The Jurf al-Nasr base, which serves as one of the main bastions of the powerful Tehran-backed group, has been struck several times since the war in the Middle East broke out, starting in the early hours of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran.

An Iranian drone struck a parking lot outside the U.S. consulate in Dubai on Tuesday, causing a small fire but no injuries, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

Rubio told reporters at the U.S. Capitol that all consulate personnel in Dubai were safe and accounted for, reports Al Jazeera.

The United Arab Emirates and Qatar separately said Wednesday they had intercepted drone and missile barrages as Iran pressed its campaign targeting its neighbours into a fifth day.

The UAE's ministry of defence said its air defences "successfully engaged today (March 4, 2025) with 3 ballistic missiles and detected 129 drones, of which 121 drones were intercepted while 8 fell on state territory".