Overview
- Iran extended retaliatory attacks on March 2 to Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura complex, where drone debris caused a small fire and a temporary shutdown, struck the UK’s Akrotiri air base on Cyprus with minor damage, and hit a UAE Amazon Web Services data center that caught fire and disrupted services, as blasts were also reported in Doha, Dubai and Bahrain.
- Kuwait’s defense ministry reported several US aircraft crashes near Al-Salem Air Base and the Pentagon confirmed at least one, while Qatar’s foreign ministry said about 20 people sustained minor injuries from Iranian strikes.
- Israel carried out two waves of strikes on Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon and Beirut, with at least 30 deaths and roughly 149 injuries reported by Lebanon’s health ministry, ordered evacuations from nearly 50 villages, and signaled preparations for prolonged operations that could include a ground incursion, according to regional reporting.
- Tehran confirmed the deaths of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior figures including IRGC commander Mohammad Pakpour and security adviser Ali Shamkhani, installed a temporary governing council, and named Ahmad Vahidi to lead the IRGC.
- The New York Times and Wall Street Journal report the CIA tracked Khamenei for months and provided high-confidence targeting to Israel, and that US commands used Anthropic’s Claude AI in planning the strikes, a claim the Pentagon has not addressed publicly.