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Article: NATO’s chief downplays the risks of the alliance being drawn into the conflict.

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Summary: The conflict between Iran and the U.S.-Israel alliance is escalating and spreading geographically, with Iranian drone and missile strikes reported in Azerbaijan, Israel, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf region. In response, European nations like Italy are increasing military support to allies, and NATO has intercepted a missile near Turkish airspace. Iran denies some actions, like the strikes on Azerbaijan and the missile toward Turkey, and frames its campaign as retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli bombing that killed its Supreme Leader.

Main Topics Covered: 1. Geographic expansion of the Iran-U.S./Israel conflict beyond the Middle East. 2. Military responses and involvement from European nations and NATO. 3. Details of recent strikes and counter-strikes by all involved parties. 4. Iran's justification for its actions and denial of certain events.

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https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03/05/world/iran-war-israel-trump/natos-chief-downplays-the-risks-of-the-alliance-being-drawn-into-the-conflict

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NYT > World News

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2026-03-05 13:34

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2026-03-05 11:00

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2026-03-05 11:01

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Live Updates: Iran Crisis Spills Beyond Mideast as Europe Ramps Up Response
Iranian drones landed in Azerbaijan, a day after NATO shot down a missile headed to Turkish airspace. Italy pledged air defense weapons to help Gulf nations defend against Iran’s retaliatory attacks.
- Diego Ibarra Sánchez for The New York Times
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
- Reuters
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Eranga Jayawardene/Associated Press
- Ihlas News Agency, via Reuters
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Ariel Schalit/Associated Press
- Fadel Senna/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Two Iranian drones fell into Azerbaijan on Thursday, and more Iranian strikes were reported in Israel and Iraq, the latest signs of a broadening regional conflict as a sustained campaign of U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran entered its sixth day.
Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said that the two drones had landed in Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani exclave on Iran’s northern border, injuring two civilians. Iran’s armed forces denied firing drones at Azerbaijan and blamed the action on Israel.
European leaders, including some who disapproved of the initial U.S.-Israeli assault, have found themselves drawn into the conflict’s widening orbit and are accelerating plans to deploy military assets to protect their citizens and interests. On Thursday, Italy said that it was sending air defense support to Gulf countries, which have taken the brunt of Iran’s retaliatory strikes.
The conflict, which has killed hundreds so far, mainly in Iran, raged on unabated. The U.S. military said that it was “finding and destroying” Iran’s mobile missile launchers, while Israel and Iran traded fresh blows and the Israeli military ordered more evacuations in southern areas of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, as it targets Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Iran also struck again at pro-American Kurdish forces in neighboring Iraq, hitting a base belonging to one of the groups, the Komala Party, according to an official from the group who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Iran for days has targeted the Kurdish forces, which it views as terrorist groups, as Iraqi officials and senior members of the forces say they are preparing armed units that could enter Iran.
Iran has said its strikes, begun in retaliation to the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday, are in self-defense. But the targets Iran has hit in the Persian Gulf in recent days have included American embassies, energy installations, airports and resort hotels.
Iran on Thursday denied Turkey’s claim that it had fired a missile toward Turkish airspace a day earlier. Turkey said on Wednesday that NATO had shot down the missile. Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary-general, told Reuters on Thursday that the alliance did not need to activate its mutual defense clause over the episode but added that NATO supported the U.S. military campaign, saying that Iran was “close to becoming a threat to Europe as well.”
Here’s what else we’re covering:
Iranian ship: Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, accused the United States of an “atrocity at sea” after a torpedo launched from a U.S. Navy submarine sank an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka on Wednesday. The frigate had recently taken part in a naval exercise hosted by India. Dozens of sailors were killed, the Sri Lankan authorities said. Read more ›
Supreme leader: Iran’s top clerics are considering their choice to replace Mr. Khamenei. His son Mojtaba Khamenei appears to be a front-runner. Read more ›
Market rally: After three days of intense volatility, global stock markets stabilized and the price of oil rose more modestly on Thursday than in recent days. But concerns about the impact of a surge in energy prices were still hanging over markets. Read more ›
China’s oil exports: Officials from China’s top economic policy agency told Chinese companies on Thursday to suspend exports of refined oil, according to Guo Shiying, a senior executive at a state-owned investment firm. China, the largest buyer of Iranian oil, will send a special envoy to the Middle East to help conduct conflict mediation efforts, its foreign ministry earlier said. China on Thursday set its economy growth target below 5 percent for the first time in decades.
Americans killed: Six U.S. service members have been killed in the conflict. The Defense Department on Wednesday night released the name of a fifth American killed in an Iranian attack on Sunday, and released the name of another soldier believed to have died in the same incident.Read more ›
Evacuations: The White House said that 17,500 Americans had returned safely from the Middle East since the start of the war, and the U.S. State Department ordered more employees to leave their posts at embassies and consulates in four countries, after facing criticism for not doing enough to facilitate evacuations.
Death toll: At least 787 people have been killed in Iran since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attacks, according to the Red Crescent Society, Iran’s main humanitarian relief organization, including at least 175 who died in the bombing of a girls’ elementary school. At least 77 people in Lebanon have been killed, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Iranian Kurdish forces, based in Iraq, are preparing armed units that could be sent into Iran, potentially with U.S. support, in an insurgency that would open a new front against the Iranian government.
Though the White House has denied that it agreed to any plan for the Kurds to launch an insurgency in Iran, the United States has a long history of working with Kurdish militias around the region.
It also has a reputation for abandoning them: After the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the United States encouraged a Kurdish uprising in Iraq then stood by as the Iraqi army slaughtered Kurdish forces.
Who are the Kurds?
The Kurds are an ethnic group of roughly 40 million people spread largely across four countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. They have long sought either a state of their own or greater autonomy, and are often considered to be the largest contiguous ethnic group in the world without an independent state.
In the aftermath of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Kurds across the Middle East were promised a nation of their own by world powers, but it never came to be.
Many Kurds blame the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 — a secret deal between Britain and France that carved up the Middle East along often illogical boundaries — for denying them a country of their own and dividing them among states that have, at times, proved hostile.
Since then, Kurdish people have faced varying degrees of discrimination, including bans on speaking their own language, celebrating their culture or even receiving citizenship.
Those measures fueled calls for greater Kurdish autonomy. Some countries saw the rise of armed groups, such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and other countries.
How big is Iran’s Kurdish minority?
Kurds make up 10 percent of Iran’s population and are concentrated in the northwest, along its border with Iraq. They have at times been at the forefront of protest movements against Iran’s theocratic government.
In 2022, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, died after she was arrested by the country’s morality police, accused of violating the country’s strict codes on modest dress for women. Her death sparked a nationwide protest movement, which was centered around women’s rights and freedoms in Iran but also touched on longstanding grievances held by the Kurdish minority.
At one point, Kurdish protesters seized control of Oshnavieh, a city in the Kurdish region of Iran, though it was soon retaken by government forces.
“This is not all about the head scarf,” Hana Yazdanpana, a spokeswoman for the Kurdistan Freedom Party, an Iranian paramilitary group based in Iraq, said at the time. “The Kurds want freedom.”
Some Iranian Kurdish armed groups are based in Iraqi Kurdistan, a region in the north of Iraq that broke away from the central government’s control in 1992 with U.S. support. It is recognized as a semiautonomous region by the United Nations and the United States, among others.
Will the Kurds join the fighting in Iran?
Kurdish militias have previously crossed borders to aid one another, most notably in Syria’s civil war. Kurds from Turkey, Iraq and Iran came together to fight there alongside Syria’s minority. It is unclear to what extent an armed uprising in Iran’s Kurdish region would galvanize other Kurds around the region.
For more than a decade, Kurdish forces were the United States’ closest allies in Syria, fighting against ISIS, guarding American bases and running internment camps and prisons that held tens of thousands of ISIS fighters and their relatives.
That alliance has been disintegrating, however, as the United States has thrown its support behind the new government of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTForeign ministers from Persian Gulf countries held talks with their European Union counterparts via videolink today to discuss the situation in Iran and the Middle East. The overall focus was on encouraging diplomacy over force, with the ministers reaffirming “their unwavering commitment to dialogue and diplomacy as means to resolve the crisis,” according to a news release issued following the meeting. The statement also commended “the constructive role of Oman in this regard.”
The ministers also talked about the region’s importance to global economic stability, as Europe braces for the potential fallout from rising energy prices.
The Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, on Thursday downplayed risks that the military alliance could be pulled into the conflict in the Middle East after an Iranian missile was shot down as it headed toward Turkey.
Turkey is a member of NATO. A senior U.S. military official and a Western official said the Iranian strike had targeted Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base, which hosts a sizable U.S. Air Force contingent. Both officials said the missile had been shot down by an interceptor fired from a U.S. warship in the eastern Mediterranean. Iran has denied firing the missile.
In an interview with Reuters, Mr. Rutte would not confirm any details about the missile’s origin or target. But he said a NATO ally “was able to take it out” and called it “clear evidence that we, with a 360-degree approach, we will defend every inch of NATO territory.”
“Our military are constantly on it,” Mr. Rutte said. “But of course, this was serious and absolutely condemnable.”
However, he said, the alliance is not discussing invoking Article 5, the agreement that an attack on one NATO member is considered an attack on all. He also raised the prospect of risks if President Trump had not agreed to join forces with Israel against Iran last weekend, saying Iran’s nuclear and missile programs were “also a threat to Europe.”
“But of course, there are always downsides, in the sense that you have to be sure that you defend every inch of NATO territory — as we are doing,” Mr. Rutte said.
He suggested it was too early to predict how the conflict will unfold, but cited “widespread acknowledgement and agreement” that it should end with Iran no longer posing a threat to Israel or exporting proxy forces and weapons to allies.
While making clear that “NATO itself is not involved here,” Mr. Rutte said European allies also were playing a crucial part.
“Without European allies, the U.S. would have found it very difficult to launch this campaign against Iran,” Mr. Rutte said. He expressed confidence in the American war plans: “It’s my absolute sense that they know what they are doing,” he said.
The Lebanese prime minister is taking measures to “prevent any military or security activities by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps inside Lebanon, in preparation for their deportation,” the country’s information minister, Paul Morcos, told the country’s state news agency, NNA. He did not specify what those measures would be, and it is unclear what the nature of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ presence is in Lebanon.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTPrime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy spoke with President Emmanuel Macron of France on Thursday to coordinate the deployment of military resources to Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean, according to the Italian government. The talks took place as more European governments, including Italy, have announced measures to support Persian Gulf countries that have been attacked by Iran, both to support allies and to protect their citizens in the region. Macron has spoken of using the French military to help secure international shipping routes.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain has scheduled a news conference to talk about the situation in Iran for 2 p.m. local time, 9 a.m. Eastern. Starmer has been attacked by President Trump and is under pressure from domestic political opponents for not moving quickly enough to assist in the military strikes by the United States and Israel.
The Israeli military called on residents to flee Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the militant group Hezbollah holds sway, ordering them to flee northward. “Save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately,” it said in a statement. “We will inform you when it is safe to return homes.”
Reporting from Cairo
The United Arab Emirates detected seven ballistic missiles fired at its territory on Thursday, six of which were intercepted and destroyed, the defense ministry said in a statement.
Since Iran started targeting the Emirates on Saturday, the ministry said, 196 ballistic missiles, more than 1,000 drones and eight cruise missiles have been detected. The vast majority have been intercepted but three people have been killed and 94 wounded.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTMark Rutte, NATO’s secretary-general, said on Thursday that the alliance was not discussing invoking its mutual defense clause, known as Article 5, after NATO forces shot down a ballistic missile headed toward Turkey, a member of the security alliance. Iran has denied firing the missile.
Rutte told Reuters that NATO supported the U.S.-Israeli military campaign, saying that Iran was “close to becoming a threat to Europe as well.” But he said that there was no immediate reason to activate Article 5. “The most important thing is that our adversaries have seen yesterday that NATO is so strong and so vigilant, and even more vigilant, if possible, since Saturday.”
Fatemeh Mohajerani, the spokeswoman for Iran’s government, accused the United States and Israel of violating international law with many of its strike targets, according to a statement cited by the state news outlet, IRNA. Among civilian targets that had been hit, she said, were 20 educational centers, 25 medical facilities, and six emergency centers. The U.S. torpedoing of an Iranian navy ship off the coast of Sri Lanka, she said, targeted 130 Iranian sailors in international waters without “any warning.”
The Israeli military said one of its F-35 fighter jets had shot down a crewed Iranian Yak-130 fighter over the Iranian capital of Tehran on Wednesday. The Iranian government has not commented so far.
Israel’s military released a video on Thursday that showed an Iranian fighter jet being shot down by the Israeli Air Force over Tehran. The Times was able to verify the location of the footage.
Israel said it was the first time one of its F-35 fighter jets, known as an Adir, had downed another crewed fighter aircraft.
Both Israeli and American warplanes have conducted numerous bombing sorties over Iran since Saturday while facing little apparent resistance from Iran’s aerial defenses. They have struck thousands of targets, according to the U.S. and Israeli militaries.
Experts say Iran’s air force is one of the weakest parts of its military, as it has long been hobbled by international arms embargoes. Many of its aircraft are decades-old designs from the 1960s and 1970s, when the U.S. and Iran were allies, while others were Soviet-built.
That means Iran’s planes are little match for the top-line American and Israeli fighters streaking through the skies over Tehran. The F-35 jet that Israel used was originally designed in the United States and is one of the most sophisticated stealth fighters in the world.
And while Iran has acquired sophisticated Russian-made air defense arrays in the past, analysts say successive Israeli assaults have severely degraded those capabilities over the past two years.
On Monday, Qatar said it had also shot down two Soviet-made Su-24 bombers “coming from the Islamic Republic of Iran.” It was unclear whether they were shot down in Qatari airspace or elsewhere.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTIran’s armed forces has denied firing drones at Azerbaijan, according to a statement released by Iran’s state media agency, IRNA. Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said on Thursday that two drones fired from Iran had injured two people and damaged an airport. Iran’s military accused Israel of launching the strikes “to disrupt relations between Muslim countries,” without providing any evidence.
President Trump has said that destroying Iran’s Navy is a core objective of the U.S. military campaign. American forces have sunk more than 20 Iranian naval vessels, including one that was torpedoed by a submarine in the Indian Ocean, according to the U.S. Central Command.
While Iran’s nuclear and missile programs have dominated conversations about its military capabilities, the United States and its allies in the region have also long considered its naval forces a serious threat because of their ability to disrupt trade and energy supplies from the Persian Gulf region.
In recent periods of high tension, Iranian officials have threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel between Iran and the United Arab Emirates through which vessels carry a fifth of the world’s oil and a significant amount of natural gas.
Here’s what to know about Iran’s naval forces:
Iran has two navies.
In the years after the Islamic revolution of 1979, Iran’s military planners organized its naval forces into two separate services. The Islamic Republic of Iran Navy resembles most other navies, mainly armed with conventional warships. The Revolutionary Guards, a powerful force parallel to the regular military, has its own navy focused on operations in the Gulf and along Iran’s coastline. The Guards’ navy mainly uses smaller, faster boats.
Before Iran was attacked, its regular navy had three submarines, eight frigates and two corvettes in its fleet, according to data from the defense intelligence firm Janes. It also had 22 small submarines. These were designed specifically for operating in the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf, according to the U.S. military. The Revolutionary Guards’ navy was mainly equipped with hundreds of smaller, fast vessels, according to Janes.
Having the ability to lay mines in regional waters has been a key component of Iranian naval strategy, according to U.S. Navy assessments. Iran’s naval services acquired vessels, including submarines and small boats, that are capable of laying mines and disrupting shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment released last year.
In recent years, Iran’s naval forces also integrated into its fleet one of the country’s growing and most potent new weapons: drones. Iran possessed at least one drone carrier ship, the IRIS Shahid Bagheri.
The U.S. says it sank more than 20 Iranian warships.
Iran’s naval forces were hit as soon as U.S. operations commenced, and more than 20 warships had been destroyed by American forces as of Wednesday, according to U.S. Central Command. These include the drone carrier Shahid Bagheri, which Central Command said was sunk within hours of the start of the operation.
Central Command has said the other destroyed vessels include two corvettes and a frigate, the IRIS Dena.
There were no Iranian warships left in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz or the Gulf of Oman by March 3, according to an infographic on the first 100 hours of the operation released by the U.S. military. Central Command has not provided details about the other vessels it said were destroyed.
The Revolutionary Guards warned ships away from the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend.
An American submarine torpedoed the Dena.
The sinking of the frigate Dena was the deadliest known U.S. strike on the Iranian navy in the current operations.
The Dena sent a distress signal after it was hit. The Sri Lankan Navy sent ships to help and was able to rescue 32 Iranian sailors. At least 80 people on the ship were killed, according to the Sri Lankan authorities.
Iran’s foreign minister said on Thursday that almost 130 sailors had been on board the ship when it was hit, and he accused the United States of carrying out “an atrocity at sea.” Sri Lanka’s foreign minister had earlier said there was a crew of 180.
The attack marked the first time since World War II that a U.S. Navy submarine had struck a vessel with a torpedo in combat.
Abdi Latif Dahir contributed reporting.
Azerbaijan said on Thursday that it had been struck by two drones fired from Iranian territory, injuring two people and damaging a local airport, as the conflict that began last week with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran spreads farther beyond the Middle East.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said the attack on Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani exclave wedged between Armenia and Iran, was conducted by the Iranian armed forces. The ministry said that Azerbaijan was preparing “necessary retaliatory measures to defend the country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
“These acts of aggression will not remain unanswered,” the ministry said.
Iran denied responsibility for the attack. It accused Israel of launching the drones to “disrupt relations among Muslim countries,” in a statement released by the Iranian state news agency, IRNA. It gave no evidence.
Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s strongman president, was unconvinced. Speaking with his top officials hours after the attack, Mr. Aliyev said Iran had committed “an act of terror” against his country.
“Those who committed it must be immediately held accountable,” Mr. Aliyev said. “Iranian officials must provide an explanation to the Azerbaijani side, an apology must be offered, and those who committed this terrorist act must be held criminally liable.”
Azerbaijan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic strategically situated on the eastern flank of the South Caucasus, shares a more than 400-mile border with Iran. Millions of ethnic Azerbaijanis reside in Iran, a demographic reality that has caused tensions between the two countries. Azerbaijan’s strong ties to Israel have also strained its relations with Iran, as has the neighbors’ competition for influence in the South Caucasus.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said the attack constituted “a violation of the norms and principles of international law and serves to increase tensions in the region.” The ministry said it had summoned the Iranian ambassador to Azerbaijan.
Pictures and a video published by Azerbaijan’s state news agency, Azertac, showed scattered debris in the terminal building at the airport in Nakhchivan after the attack. The images also showed what the agency said were the remains of a drone on the airport’s tarmac. Another drone hit the village next to the airport, the Foreign Ministry said.
Videos circulating on social media, including the Telegram channel of the Azerbaijani armed forces, and verified by The New York Times showed a drone striking the village, Shekarabad. People can be seen standing in the airport’s parking lot and watching as the drone dives and causes a fiery explosion.
Other footage verified by The Times shows damage at the Nakhchivan airport itself. Broken glass can be seen hanging from the ceiling of the terminal hall in one of the videos.
Nakhchivan has been a source of tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran. In recent years, Tehran has opposed Azerbaijan’s plan to build a corridor through Armenia near the border with Iran that would link the Azerbaijani mainland with the Nakhchivan exclave. The project has been backed by President Trump.
Shortly after United States and Israel attacked Iran last week, Azerbaijan took steps to head off new tensions. Its foreign minister pledged that Azerbaijani territory would not be used to attack what he called a “friendly” Iran.
On Wednesday, Mr. Aliyev visited Iran’s embassy in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to offer his condolences on the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, who was killed in an Israeli attack, and Iranian civilians who have died during the conflict.
But on Thursday, after the attack, Mr. Aliyev sentiment was different.
“No other head of state has visited any Iranian embassy,” Mr. Aliyev said during his meeting with officials. “Not appreciating this, downplaying it, and acting like vile and ungrateful people does not bring honor to anyone.”
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTPrime Minister Narendra Modi of India referred to conflicts in Ukraine and in the Middle East on Thursday and said “that no issue can be resolved through military conflicts alone.” But he made no mention of the sinking of an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka by a U.S. submarine yesterday, days after the ship had taken part in multilateral drills hosted by India. Modi spoke after a meeting with President Alexander Stubb of Finland, saying both nations “believe in the rule of law, dialogue, and diplomacy.”
Traffic around Dubai International’s Airport, one of the world’s busiest airports, has been eerily quiet. A few dozen passengers could be seen trying to enter Terminal 1 but security officers have only been allowing those with boarding passes to enter the main departure building before the check-in counters. The authorities in Dubai have begun some flight operations from the emirate, prioritizing passengers who were either in transit when flights grounded to a halt on Saturday, or those with existing tickets when Iran began retaliatory strikes against several countries in the Persian Gulf.
At least 77 have been killed in Lebanon since Israel launched its attack there on Monday, according to a statement from the Lebanese health ministry. It said that more than 500 people had been wounded.
Italy will send air defense support to Persian Gulf countries to protect against Iranian strikes, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Thursday. Meloni is the latest European leader to offer military support to allies in the region, both to support them but also to protect Italian citizens and soldiers in the area. Tens of thousands of Italians live in the region and 2,000 of the country’s troops are based there.
“We are clearly talking about defense, particularly air defense,” she told an Italian radio station. “These are people we want to, and must, protect,” she said, adding that the Gulf region was critical to Italy’s energy supplies.
Meloni added that the United States had not asked to use its military bases in Italy for the campaign against Iran. The bilateral agreements between Italy and the United States grant use for operations that “do not involve bombing,” she said, adding that any request to use the bases for other purposes would require the approval of the Italian Parliament.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTKaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, said in Brussels on Thursday that “Iran is exporting the war, trying to expand it to as many countries as they can to sow chaos.” E.U. foreign ministers are meeting with officials from the Gulf by videoconference today, and Kallas said that one topic of discussion will be drone interceptors. Because the same drones that have been hitting Ukraine are now attacking partners in the Middle East, she said, lessons learned in Ukraine could be used to help Gulf nations.
Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, blamed Israel and the U.S. for a deadly strike that hit a girls’ elementary school in Iran on Saturday, the opening day of the war. “Mr. Trump! Was this the anthem you composed for freedom in Iran?!” he wrote on social media. U.S. officials said Wednesday that they were still investigating whether it was an American strike that hit the school, killing at least 175 people, most of them likely children, according to state media and health officials. It is not clear why the school was hit, or which country’s forces fired at it.
When Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, sat down for Shabbat dinner on Friday at his mother’s home in central Israel, nobody else at the table knew what was about to unfold.
Hours later, the general was being taken in an unmarked car to an underground military command center in Tel Aviv, where he gave the orders for Israeli forces to attack Iran, according to two Israeli military officials.
Those orders included the assassination of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.
“You are authorized to execute,” General Zamir said, according to Israel’s military. “Strike your targets — you’re making history.”
General Zamir, 60, has emerged as a key architect of the joint Israeli-American offensive, drafting war plans with his American counterparts, consulting with Israeli political leaders and Arab security officials, and overseeing airstrikes, the officials said.
“He’s managing the operation,” said Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom, a former senior Israeli military strategist. The Israeli military said General Zamir was not available for an interview.
Current and former Israeli officials say General Zamir has long been focused on the threat from Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen and on how Israel, the United States and the Arab world can work together to thwart it.
“He considers Iran to be the head of the snake,” said Brig. Gen. Guy Hazut, who previously served under General Zamir and has written about the Israeli military. “The idea is when you pull out the rug from under Iran, you pull out the rug from under all of its proxies surrounding us.”
A native of Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city, General Zamir has served in various senior positions in the military, including as a commander of operations in the Gaza Strip.
Former colleagues say that his years as commander in a tank division proved to be formative, giving him a soldier’s eye view of the battlefield.
He became chief of staff in March last year, and analysts say he was appointed by the Israeli government to help rebuild public trust in the military after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, widely regarded as among the worst intelligence failures in the country’s history.
General Zamir had previously warned about Israel’s preparedness in the face of a “heavy, long, multifront battle,” saying in 2021 that Israel needed a “critical mass” of soldiers that wasn’t there at the time.
He went on to lead a campaign against Hamas in Gaza that has come under intense international criticism. Israel’s bombardments caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians and widespread destruction.
The Israeli military has said it does not deliberately target civilians and accused Hamas of embedding its fighters among them.
Three months into General Zamir’s tenure, Israel carried out a surprise attack on the Iranian nuclear program, igniting a 12-day conflict last June, during which Iran retaliated with volleys of ballistic missiles aimed at Israeli territory.
Hundreds of Iranians were killed in that war, including women and children, according to Iran’s health ministry. Dozens of Israelis were killed by Iran’s retaliatory strikes, the Israeli authorities say.
The conflict was a watershed moment for General Zamir, as Israel was for the first time fighting an open war against Iran, and not one of its regional proxies.
For years, the two sides had traded one-off clandestine attacks by land, sea, air and cyberspace. General Zamir had argued that those attacks should be expanded. In a 77-page paper for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, he called for a focused campaign against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and a defensive alliance against Iran among states in the region.
“It is important to act strategically with partners and act unexpectedly to create surprises and uncertainty and generate apprehension both in Iran and among its proxies,” he wrote.
In the weeks leading up to the current campaign, General Zamir held a flurry of meetings with the top leadership of the U.S. military.
In January, he visited Washington to meet with Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And he has discussed intelligence and battle plans with Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of Central Command, a branch of the U.S. military responsible for the Middle East, according to the two Israeli officials.
The commanders have a close working relationship, and General Zamir even hosted Admiral Cooper for Shabbat dinner in Israel, the officials added.
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Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute, who worked with General Zamir in the 2020s when he was a fellow at the institute, said he was someone known for speaking candidly, laying it down as he sees it.
That has extended to senior politicians. General Zamir served as military secretary for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and, although they appear to be aligned on the need to attack Iran, the two men have been at odds before.
When Mr. Netanyahu set out plans to invade Gaza City in August, which he said was an effort to rout Hamas, General Zamir pushed back, raising concerns about the welfare of Israeli hostages in Gaza and the exhaustion of his soldiers. He has also been vocal about the military’s need to enlist more ultra-Orthodox Israelis in its ranks, even as the government delays passing legislation on the issue.
“He’s not a yes man,” said Moshe Tur-Paz, a centrist Israeli lawmaker and a member of the Israeli parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “Professionalism is more important to him than political loyalty.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTIran’s foreign minister accused the United States of committing an “atrocity at sea” on Thursday, a day after an American submarine torpedoed an Iranian frigate off the southern coast of Sri Lanka.
The warship, the IRIS Dena, had recently participated in a peacetime naval exercise that India hosted from Feb. 14 to 25. It was sailing outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters when it sent a distress signal at 5:08 a.m. local time, the Sri Lankan foreign minister, Vijitha Herath, told the country’s parliament. Sri Lanka responded by sending naval ships and its air force to the damaged vessel.
As of Thursday, Sri Lankan security forces said the bodies of 84 sailors who died in the attack had been recovered, with the Sri Lankan Navy still searching for 64 others. The 32 rescued sailors have been taken to Sri Lanka’s Galle National Hospital.
Iran’s navy has been under heavy fire since Saturday, with its warships at times appearing poorly defended. Satellite imagery analyzed by the Times showed multiple vessels ablaze in port for more than a day, with few visible efforts to move or salvage them.
On Wednesday, Pete Hegseth, the U.S. defense secretary, touted the attack as an example of American military might.
“America is winning, decisively, devastatingly and without mercy,” Mr. Hegseth said at a Pentagon briefing where he announced the sinking. He said that the Iranian ship “thought it was safe in international waters.”
“Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo,” he said.
In a social media post on Thursday, Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, condemned the attack, saying that the ship had been a “guest of India’s Navy.”
“The U.S. will come to bitterly regret precedent it has set,” Mr. Araghchi said.
The incident has created a challenge for India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who has yet to publicly comment on the strike. Mr. Modi is already facing criticism that his government has taken an overly timid stance on the U.S. and Israel’s attack of Iran, a key partner, amid his efforts to smooth tariff frictions with Washington.
“The conflict has reached our backyard, with an Iranian warship sunk in the Indian Ocean. Yet the prime minister has said nothing,” Rahul Gandhi, an opposition politician, wrote on social media.
In his own social media post, Mallikarjun Kharge, the president of the Indian National Congress, the primary opposition party, accused Mr. Modi of betraying India’s strategic and national interests.
A second Iranian ship remains floating off Sri Lanka’s coast, a senior official told the country’s Parliament on Thursday. Cabinet spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa said the country’s authorities would intervene to “reduce loss of lives and resolve the problem.”
The first planned evacuation flight for British nationals has been delayed because of technical issues, the British government said. The flight was scheduled to depart from Muscat, Oman, on Wednesday evening, but was abruptly halted. Passengers described boarding the plane and then having to return to the airport. Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement that the flight was now expected to depart later on Thursday.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, said that at least two more government evacuation flights will leave the region in the coming days.
Qatar’s air defense systems have intercepted a missile attack, the country’s ministry of defense said in a statement. Qatar’s energy infrastructure has been targeted by Iran in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli military campaign, and the Qatari government has ordered people in the country to stay indoors and away from windows and open areas.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTAfter three days of intense volatility following the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, global stock markets stabilized and the price of oil rose more modestly on Thursday than in recent days. Europe’s benchmark index, the Stoxx Europe 600, was flat and futures suggested the S&P 500 would open slightly higher when trading opens in New York at 9:30 a.m Eastern. Earlier on Thursday, stock markets in Asia jumped, reversing steep declines from the previous two days.
But concerns about the impact of a surge in energy prices were still hanging over markets. As investors contemplated the risk of a resurgence in inflation, which could lead to higher interest rates, the price of government bonds fell, pushing their yields higher. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading at about $82 a barrel after rising earlier in the day.
Oman, which had been mediating talks between the United States and Iran to avert a war, said it was working with airlines and governments to help stranded travelers seeking to be evacuated from the Persian Gulf region.
A number of repatriation flights for stranded travelers in the region have already left from the country. The airport in Muscat, the country’s capital, is about 280 miles from Dubai, which has shut its airport for most commercial services since the U.S-Israel attack on Iran.
“The Omani government is working with your governments and international airlines to organise flights to get you home,” Badr Albusaidi, Oman’s foreign minister, said on social media. “We mean everyone, whatever passport you hold.”
The Iranian warship that an American submarine torpedoed on Wednesday had recently taken part in a naval exercise hosted by India. India hosted the large peacetime exercise from Feb. 15 to 25 and has yet to issue a formal statement on the fate of the crew.
The leader of India’s political opposition faulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the government’s subsequent silence.
“The conflict has reached our backyard, with an Iranian warship sunk in the Indian Ocean. Yet the prime minister has said nothing,” Rahul Gandhi wrote on social media.
A second Iranian ship is floating inside Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone, a senior politician told the country’s Parliament on Thursday. An E.E.Z. is a stretch of sea beyond a country’s borders over which it has sovereign rights to explore and use maritime resources under United Nations rules.
Cabinet spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa said authorities were “intervening for peace and to reduce loss of lives and resolve the problem,” adding that the IRIS Dena was also inside Sri Lanka’s E.E.Z. when the United States torpedoed it on Wednesday.
The opposition leader Sajith Premadasa criticized the ship’s presence, saying a county’s E.E.Z. “is for peaceful purposes, not for military action” and calling it “a death blow to our sovereignty.”
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