Top updates: Drone strikes on US embassy in Saudi Arabia, Trump says war on Iran can go ‘forever’

The Saudi Arabian government on Tuesday said that the United States embassy in Riyadh was struck by two drones that caused a “limited fire”, Al Jazeera reported.

There was “minor material damage to the building”, a Saudi defence ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying.

Fresh strikes were also reported in other parts of West Asia on Tuesday.

On Monday, Israel and the United States escalated their attacks on Iran. US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that wars could be fought “‘forever’, and very successfully” using the existing military supplies.

Later, the Israel Defense Forces said that it was conducting simultaneous strikes against military targets in Tehran and in Beirut.

Tehran and its allies retaliated, striking Israel and several sites in Gulf states.

The conflict began on Saturday after Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran in a joint military operation. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the attacks.

The killing of Khamenei, who had controlled all branches of the government and the armed forces since 1989, further escalated an already volatile situation in the region.

Here’s more on this and other top updates from the conflict in West Asia:

• The Israeli military on Tuesday issued urgent evacuation orders for 50 locations across Lebanon, including southern Beirut neighbourhoods, warning residents to leave immediately due to imminent operations targeting facilities belonging to Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, AFP reported “You are located near Hezbollah facilities and interests, against which the IDF will operate in the near future,” a statement by the military's Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said.
• On Monday, Lebanon banned Hezbollah’s military and security activities, Al Jazeera reported. “We announce a ban on Hezbollah’s military activities and restrict its role to the political sphere,” Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said. Hezbollah is backed by Iran.
• On Tuesday, the US Department of State urged its citizens ⁠in more than a dozen West Asian countries to leave immediately. The countries included Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
• Mora Namdar, the US state department’s assistant secretary for consular affairs, said that US citizens should leave using available commercial transportation “due to serious safety risks”. Besides Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the advisory applied to Israel, Iran, Palestine, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Syria and Yemen.
• The state department also said that it had authorised the departure of non-emergency government personnel and their family members from Bahrain and Jordan. It updated its travel advisories for both countries, raising it to “Level 3”, which advises to “reconsider travel due to safety risks”.  A day earlier, the department ordered non-emergency US government employees “to leave Iraq due to security concerns”, AFP reported. 

• Trump on Monday said that the attacks on Iran could extend longer than a month, AFP reported. The president said that the war was going “substantially” ahead of schedule but that the US was equipped for a prolonged conflict. “From the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that,” the news agency quoted Trump as saying. He added that the objectives of the attacks included destroying Iran’s missiles, navy and nuclear programme and stopping Tehran’s support for armed groups across the region.
• United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that US forces “would not deliberately target a school”. This came after Iranian state media reported that more than 160 persons were killed in a strike on a ​girls’ school in Minab town on Saturday, in what was the deadliest incident in the conflict so far. Rubio told reporters that the US had “no incentive to target civilian infrastructure”, adding that it was Iran that was striking hotels and airports in the Gulf countries.
• Israel said that it has “struck and dismantled” the headquarters of Iran’s state radio and television broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, in Tehran, AFP reported. “The activities taking place at the centre were carried out and directed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps,” the news agency quoted the Israeli military as claiming. “Over the years, the Iranian Broadcasting Authority called for the destruction of the State of Israel and for the use of nuclear weapons,” it claimed.
• Iran claimed that the Strait of Hormuz was “closed” for shipping traffic, warning that any vessel attempting to pass through the strategic waterway would be set on fire, India Today reported. “If anyone tries to pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guards and the regular navy will set those ships ablaze,” General Sardar Ebrahim Jabari, an adviser to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander-in-chief, was quoted as having warned.
• Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said that Iranian forces had struck the Al Minhad Air Base near Dubai, reported Al Jazeera. He added that Australian troops were stationed there and that they were “safe and accounted for”.
• Iranian media said that Mansoureh Khojasteh, the wife of Khamenei, died on Monday, AP reported. The 78-year-old had been in a coma since the US-Israeli strikes on her husband’s office on Saturday.
• The US military has said that it hit more than 1,250 targets in the first 48 hours of the war on Iran, AFP reported. The targets struck included command-and-control centres, ballistic missile sites, Iranian Navy ships and submarines, and anti-ship missile sites, the news agency quoted a factsheet released by the US Central Command, which is responsible for American forces in the region, as saying.

On Saturday, Israel and the US launched a joint operation to “degrade the capabilities” of the Iranian government. Iran retaliated to the attacks and said that the US-Israeli operation had begun while the nuclear negotiations were on.

The attacks came amid tensions between the three countries over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Washington acts as a guarantor of Israel’s security. Israel has been claiming that Iran is “closer than ever” to obtaining a nuclear weapon, which could alter the regional security balance.

Iran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

However, amid fears of a potential attack, with a heavy US military deployment off its coast in recent months, Tehran had been forced to reopen negotiations with Washington about its nuclear programme.

After Khamenei’s killing on Sunday in the joint US-Israeli military operation, senior Iranian cleric Alireza Arafi was appointed to serve as part of Iran’s interim leadership.

Arafi has been named the jurist member of the temporary leadership council responsible for carrying out the supreme leader’s duties during the transition period until a successor is selected under Iran’s constitutional process.

On Monday, Hezbollah said it had fired rockets and drones at Israel in response to Khamenei’s killing, with the Jewish nation responding with a barrage of strikes in Lebanon.

The Iranian Red Crescent said on Monday that 555 persons have been killed over two days across the country since the US and Israel began their operation.

India on Saturday said that it was “deeply concerned” about the recent developments in Iran and the Gulf. The Ministry of External Affairs urged all sides to exercise restraint, avoid escalation and prioritise the safety of civilians. “Dialogue and diplomacy should be pursued to de-escalate tensions,” it stated.

The Indian diplomatic missions are in contact with Indian citizens, the ministry said, adding that advisories had been issued asking them to be vigilant. The Indian embassies in Tehran and Tel Aviv had asked citizens to exercise caution and avoid unnecessary movements.

The tensions

The US has repeatedly demanded that Iran give up its nuclear programme, threatening that Tehran must meet its terms or face consequences.

Khamenei had warned on February 1 that an attack by the US would spark a “regional war”.

Israel had been preparing for a possible conflict with Iran for several weeks.

In June, Tehran and Tel Aviv agreed to a ceasefire after 12 days of hostilities.

At the time, the Israeli military had struck what it claimed were nuclear targets, and other sites, in Iran with the aim of stalling Tehran’s nuclear programme. Iran retaliated with missile attacks on Israel.

Both countries had later accused each other of violating the ceasefire.

The two countries had been nudged by the US to accept the ceasefire after Washington on June 22 joined Israel’s war against Iran. The US military had carried out what Trump had described as a “very successful attack” on Iranian nuclear sites in Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan.

While Trump had claimed at the time that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “completely obliterated” in the attacks, Washington’s preliminary intelligence assessment had said that the strikes only set it back by a few months, and did not destroy its nuclear programme.

Trump’s fresh focus on Iran came after the US’ military operation in Venezuela. On January 3, the US military abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, for alleged drug trafficking.

Almost simultaneously, on December 28, protests erupted in Iran initially focused on discontent about rising inflation. However, they later expanded as demonstrations in more than 100 towns demanded an end to clerical rule.

More than 5,000 persons were killed in the crackdown on the protests, according to international rights groups.

Following this, Trump had announced that the US military was moving warships towards Iran “just in case” he wants to take action, saying that he was “watching them very closely”.