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Article: Iran delays naming a new leader out of security concerns, officials say.

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Based on the provided text, the key points are: Israel conducted a major bombardment of a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut, significantly escalating the conflict and opening a new front in Lebanon. Concurrently, U.S. and Israeli military campaigns against Iran continue, with U.S. officials stating Iran's retaliatory missile strikes have decreased sharply. In Washington, President Trump commented on Iran's internal leadership succession, and the U.S. House blocked a measure to limit the president's war powers.

The main topics covered are: 1. Military escalation in Lebanon (Israeli strikes on Beirut/Hezbollah). 2. The ongoing U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran and its effects. 3. U.S. domestic political actions regarding war powers. 4. International reactions and deployments. 5. Statements from U.S. leadership on Iran's political future.

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https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03/05/world/iran-war-israel-trump/iran-delays-naming-a-new-leader-out-of-security-concerns-officials-say

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NYT > World News

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2026-03-05 23:04

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2026-03-05 21:00

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2026-03-05 21:00

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Iran Live Updates: Israel Bombards Beirut, as Conflict Widens
The Pentagon said it was continuing to attack Iran, whose retaliatory missile strikes have decreased by 90 percent since Saturday. The U.S. House blocked a measure to limit President Trump’s war powers.
- Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Reuters
- Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
- Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
- Diego Ibarra Sánchez for The New York Times
- Bilal Hussein/Associated Press
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Eranga Jayawardene/Associated Press
- Ihlas News Agency, via Reuters
- Reuters
Israel unleashed a major bombardment shortly after 11 p.m. on Thursday on a Hezbollah stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut, in another sign that Lebanon is fast becoming a new front in the widening conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran.
A series of airstrikes caused huge explosions in the Dahiya area, on the outskirts of the city, in the most intense attack since a cease-fire in late 2024 halted fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
At least three buildings totally collapsed. Hundreds of displaced people were sleeping on the streets of downtown Beirut, some huddling around small fires to stay warm.
The intensified bombardment came not long after Israel military officials acknowledged that their forces had moved deeper into Lebanon than previously disclosed and Israeli armed vehicles began massing at the border.
The Israeli military had said earlier that it was going to hit targets in the Dahiya, warning people to evacuate to the north and setting off a panicked exodus on Thursday.
In Washington, President Trump said that he should have a role in choosing Iran’s new leader, and that Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the former leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who appears to be the leading candidate — to succeed his father, was an “unacceptable” choice. Mr. Trump’s comments, in interviews with Reuters and Axios, were the most explicit he has made about his view of an American role in creating a new government in Tehran.
They came European countries stepped up their deployment of military assets in the Middle East, while world leaders braced for the war’s impact on the global economy.
European leaders, several of whom disapproved of the initial U.S.-Israeli assault, emphasized that their deployments were being done to protect their citizens and their interests, as well as crucial shipping routes, and not to support the bombing of Iran.
U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran continued unabated. The U.S. military said that it was “finding and destroying” Iran’s mobile missile launchers. Israeli officials said they had achieved air superiority in Iran, having knocked out 80 percent of the country’s air defenses and 60 percent of its missile launchers.
Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, said at a news conference in Tampa, Fla., that U.S. air attacks had seriously damaged Iran’s air defenses and missile capability. He said the retaliatory ballistic missile attacks by Iran have decreased by 90 percent since Saturday. Retaliatory drone attacks, he said, had decreased by 83 percent.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sad the United States had no shortage of munitions. “Our stockpiles of defensive and offensive weapons allow us to sustain this campaign as long as we need to,” he said.
Iran has said its strikes, begun in retaliation to the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign that killed Ayatollah 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 hotels.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
War powers vote: In a vote of 219 to 212, the House blocked a bipartisan measure intended to rein in President Trump’s ability to continue the war in Iran without Congress’s approval. Four democrats joined all but two Republicans in opposing the effort. A similar vote was blocked in the Senate on Wednesday.
Beirut evacuations: The Israeli military said late Thursday night that it was striking Hezbollah infrastructure in a densely populated area on the southern outskirts of Beirut, where Hezbollah holds sway. Earlier in the day Israel called on people to leave the area, 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.”
Sunken ship: 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. Dozens of sailors were killed, Sri Lankan authorities said. After a second Iranian naval vessel asked the Sri Lankan government for permission to dock, Sri Lanka agreed to bring the 208 people on the ship to Colombo. Read more ›
Markets rattled: Global oil prices jumped and stocks fell, rattling financial markets. The jump in oil prices has raised inflation fears globally. Read more ›
Americans killed: Six U.S. service members have been killed. 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 ›
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 102 people in Lebanon have been killed, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Fears in Ukraine: The conflict is reverberating in Ukraine, putting peace talks with Russia on hold and raising fears in Kyiv of diminished military support. Read more ›
An official from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps appeared on Iran’s state television on Thursday, in military uniform with a kaffiyeh around his neck, warning Iranians they would be killed if they returned to the streets to protest. The official said protesters would be viewed as agents of Israel and “the shoot to kill order has been issued. Nobody has spoken to you this directly.”
At his event in the East Room, President Trump tried to persuade Iranian forces to give up. “I’m once again calling on all members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the military and police, to lay down their arms,” he said. He said that they would be granted “total immunity” and be “perfectly safe” if they did so, or else they would face “guaranteed death.” He also called for “Iranian diplomats around the world” to request asylum so that they could “help us shape a new and better Iran with great potential.” This was all said while a soccer team stood behind him.
Major developments — March 5
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTIran has delayed the naming of a successor to its slain supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, out of security concerns following American and Israeli comments that the new leader could also be targeted, according to two Iranian officials.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, has emerged as a top contender for the post, but concerns over his security mounted following reports in the media that he may be the new face of Iran, said the two officials, who asked not to be named to discuss sensitive issues.
Once Mr. Khamenei’s name began to circulate as the favored candidate to succeed his father, the United States said he would not be acceptable and could be eliminated.
“They are wasting their time,” President Trump told Axios on Thursday, adding that the former supreme leader’s son is “a lightweight” and an “unacceptable” choice.
“I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy in Venezuela,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Delcy Rodríguez, the Venezuelan vice president who became interim leader after Washington captured the country’s leader.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said in a social media post on Wednesday that any leader appointed by Iran to succeed Mr. Khamenei would be “an unequivocal target for elimination.”
American and Israeli strikes have so far killed Ayatollah Khamenei, and top military commanders and figures involved in defense — but not clerics. The leaders of Iran’s three branches of government — the presidency, judiciary and Parliament — are alive.
“Iranian officials will try to delay the announcement of the new supreme leader as much as they can, to avoid a pre-emptive strike on him,” said Sina Azodi, the director of the Middle East department at George Washington University. “But things are already in motion. The process has began, and a consensus reached, and Mojtaba is strongly favored.”
If Mr. Khamenei is appointed as the top religious, political and military figure in the country, it signals the continuity of hard-line conservative rule. Mr. Khamenei, a mysterious but influential figure who has operated in the shadows of power, has close ties to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Residents of Beirut spent their Thursday suspended in dread and anticipation after the large-scale evacuation order. Some made quick darts to supermarkets to stock up on food. Others stayed at home with their families, donning earplugs and praying that the night might pass quietly. When the bombing began at around 11 p.m. local time, the first explosions rolled across the city like thunder, rattling windows and sending people rushing to their balconies.
At just after midnight on Friday in Lebanon, a series of very violent airstrikes was hitting the southern suburbs of Beirut, the capital. These were the most intense strikes since a cease-fire in late 2024 paused fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The explosions were heard across different parts of Beirut and three buildings totally collapsed. Hundreds of displaced people with nowhere to flee were sleeping on the streets of downtown Beirut, some huddling around small fires to stay warm.
The Israeli military had said earlier that it was striking targets in the Dahiya, a densely populated commercial and residential area on Beirut’s outskirts that is a Hezbollah stronghold.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted on Thursday that the United States is not running out of munitions in its war in Iran. “We’ve got no shortage of munitions,” he told a news conference at the Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla. “Our stockpiles of defensive and offensive weapons allow us to sustain this campaign as long as we need to.”
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTLate on Thursday night Iranian state media said that a new volley of missiles was being launched at Israel. The military in Israel sent residents in relevant areas to shelter in a protected space. The Israeli military just before midnight on Thursday said the search and rescue forces were “operating in several locations around the country” where there were reports of fallen projectiles, but said the public was free to leave shelters.
The House voted down an effort on Thursday to halt the war against Iran and force President Trump to go to Congress for authorization, as a small bloc of Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in delivering an early sign of support for the war in the Middle East.
The vote was 219 to 212 to block consideration of a bipartisan resolution that would end offensive military operations in Iran that had not been approved by Congress.
The divide fell almost entirely along party lines, but it also highlighted splinters in both parties. Four Democrats crossed party lines to oppose the resolution, while two Republicans broke from their party to support it, citing concerns of executive overreach and disregard for the legislative branch.
“The Constitution is clear: Our Constitution provides Congress initiatory powers of war,” Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky and the lead sponsor of the resolution, said during debate on the House floor, directly challenging members of his own party.
Mr. Massie, who cosponsored the measure with Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, noted that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 allows the president to go around Congress and exercise unilateral authority to use force only if there has been a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization given or a national emergency created by an attack on the United States.
“None of those conditions exist today,” Mr. Massie said.
But Republicans opposing the resolution argued that Mr. Trump was well within his legal authority to use force.
“We have seen Iran as an imminent threat against America not just for the last four days, not just for the last four months or four years, but for the last 40 years,” said Representative Brian Mast of Florida, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
“Iran’s terror, which has caused the death of thousands of Americans — it has to stop,” he added. “They don’t warn us when they’re going to kill our Americans. They are an imminent threat.”
The vote came the day after the Senate also voted mostly along party lines to block a similar measure that would have forced Mr. Trump to win approval from Congress to continue the military operation against Iran.
Congress and presidents have clashed for generations over war powers, and administrations have long sought to expand the bounds of executive authority on military matters, often with little pushback from the legislative branch. The current conflict in Iran has resurfaced the debate.
Along with Mr. Massie, just one Republican, Representative Warren Davidson of Ohio, backed taking up the measure. Four Democrats — Representatives Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Greg Landsman of Ohio and Juan C. Vargas of California — broke with their party to oppose doing so.
In a vote of 219 to 212 the House has blocked a bipartisan measure to rein in President Trump’s ability to continue the war in Iran without Congress’s approval. Four democrats joined all but two Republicans in opposing the effort. A similar vote was blocked in the Senate on Wednesday.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTPresident Trump is speaking about the war during an event with the champions of Major League Soccer, the Inter Miami team led by the Argentine star Lionel Messi, in the East Room of the White House. He said Iran has no air force, no air defense and no communication capabilities. “But they’re tough, they want to fight,” he said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., for the first time since the Iran war started last Saturday. Hegseth received briefings and is scheduled to hold a news conference there with the head of the command, Adm. Brad Cooper, starting at about 4:30p.m.
Lebanon’s health ministry late on Thursday reported that 123 people had been killed and 683 wounded in the recent israeli attacks.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe first lady of Iraq, Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed, posted a statement on Thursday responding to reports that Kurdish forces were preparing to fight in Iran. As an Iraqi-Kurd, she wrote: “Leave the Kurds alone. We are not guns for hire.”
About 40 million Kurds are spread across Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The United States has a long history of working with Kurdish militias in the region, and sometimes abandoning them. Referring to this history, Ibrahim Ahmed wrote that the Kurds in Iraq have “finally achieved a measure of stability and dignity in life” and would not accept being “treated as pawns by the world’s superpowers.”
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Just days before it was torpedoed by a U.S. submarine, an Iranian frigate, the IRIS Dena, had joined 41 vessels from more than 70 countries for peacetime multilateral exercises off India’s eastern coast to reaffirm commitments to freedom of navigation and maritime law. The strike on the ship on Wednesday, and the killing of at least 84 of those on board, has now become a political mess for India.
Iran’s foreign minister called the Dena “a guest of India’s Navy,” and wrote that the American sub had “perpetrated an atrocity” against its crew members.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has made no official remark about the Dena’s sinking, in international waters off the coast of neighboring Sri Lanka. The Indian Navy said it received a distress call from the Sri Lankan navy on Wednesday morning about the Iranian warship and joined search and rescue efforts by Sri Lanka.
On Thursday, Mr. Modi said only that India would “continue to support every effort for the peaceful resolution of conflicts.”
Mallikarjun Kharge, the president of the opposition Congress Party, accused Mr. Modi of a “reckless abdication of India’s strategic and national interests,” for failing to stand up for their nation’s guests.
India finds itself in a deeply awkward position, caught between Iran and the United States, Israel and the Arab states of the Gulf. India has been a friendly partner to all of them in recent years. But the government has issued no expressions of outrage or sympathy to either side during the first days of the new war against Iran.
Ordinary Indians spoke more easily. S. Venkatesh looks after the scenic park of Kailasagiri, near the port where the international fleet docked. Officers and sailors, including the crew of the Dena, were welcomed ashore and toured the park’s sights, including giant white statues of the Hindu deities Shiva and Parvati.
“It is really heart-wrenching,” said Mr. Venkatesh. “Only a few days ago, I shook hands with these young men from Iran,” he said. They were served snacks and posed for photos.
Retired Vice Adm. Arun Kumar Singh was a guest at a procession on Feb. 19. “I watched the Iranian ships and then their navy men marching with the band,” Admiral Singh said. “I think more than half are dead by now.”
But the admiral did not fault the United States or India for the fate of the Dena and its men, 32 of whom were rescued by the Sri Lankan Navy. “War has broken out. And any belligerent can be attacked anywhere on the international waters,” he said.
Adm. Arun Prakash, a former chief of the Indian Navy, criticized the attack while acknowledging that it may have been within international law. “Even strategic autonomy needs to have some moral moorings and anchor,” he said in an interview with Rajdeep Sardesai, a prominent Indian journalist.
Strategic autonomy is the guiding principle of India’s foreign policy, keeping it neutral since the days of the Cold War. Talmiz Ahmad, a former Indian diplomat who served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, said, “I advocated that India should play a role as a peacemaker in the region, between Iran and the Arab states.”
For many years, India was a good friend to Iran, buying its oil and working with it to develop the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Arabian Sea.
At the same time, “the Gulf was a center of diplomatic success for India,” Mr. Ahmad said, despite hostilities between Iran and its Arab neighbors. Relations with Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. grew notably warmer during the 11 years since Mr. Modi took office.
In decades past, India maintained strong ties with both Palestinians and Israelis. But as part of its quiet realignment in the last 20 years in favor of the United States and against China, India has drawn closer to Israel, a major source of military equipment and venture capital.
After announcing a trade deal with the United States on Feb. 2, India seized three Iranian-flagged tankers that American authorities had accused of smuggling oil. Days later, the Indian government told Parliament that its commitment to the Iranian port project was complete.
Mr. Modi went to Israel on Feb. 24, and made the realignment even more clear, upgrading India’s relationship with Israel to a “special strategic partnership.”
And yet, Mr. Modi has not issued a public statement in support of the United States and Israel in its conflict with Iran. After facing hostility from the United States in the form of tariffs, and a public rift over President Trump’s role as peacemaker in India’s conflict with Pakistan last year, Mr. Modi appears to be holding on to some room to maneuver.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe Kurdistan Regional Government, the official leadership body of the Kurdistan region in Iraq, denied reports that it was planning to arm and send Kurdish opposition parties into Iran. In a social media post on Thursday, the government said it is not part of “any campaign to expand the war and tensions in the region.” Iraqi officials and senior members of Iranian Kurdish groups had said pro-American Kurdish forces in Iraq were preparing armed units that could enter Iran.
Dubai International, one of the world’s busiest airports, is usually teeming with tens of thousands of passengers at any given moment. This week, that usual bustling activity was muted, with only a few hundred stranded travelers hoping to fly out of the city amid incoming missiles and drones from Iran.
Flights across the region, including in the United Arab Emirates, have been grounded since Saturday as Tehran carries out strikes across the Persian Gulf in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
On Monday evening, Dubai’s flagship carrier, Emirates, and Flydubai, its low-cost budget airline, announced they would resume a limited number of flights for stranded passengers with tickets. They told passengers, however, “not to come to the airport unless your airline has contacted you with a confirmed departure time.”
Still, some desperate tourists, like Ellen Den from Athens showed up without a confirmed booking. Ms. Den, 37, had been on vacation in Dubai with her husband and three young children when the war erupted.
“At this point, any flight out to Europe or connecting to a different airport will do,” she said in an interview while trying to manage her twin toddlers, Alex and Nara. “If it was just two of us here we wouldn’t be too worried, but we have very small children and they are our priority.”
At the ticket sales counter at Terminal 3, a long queue of passengers with canceled bookings were trying to get any information on what to do next.
The Emirates airline did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but told local media that it was currently operating a reduced flight schedule and that “more than 100 flights will depart from and return to Dubai” on Thursday and Friday.
Iranian missile and drone attacks over the past week have challenged the United Arab Emirates’ carefully manicured reputation as a safe place in a region roiling with turmoil. On Sunday, the Dubai government’s media office said four people had been injured in an “incident” in one airport concourse. In the capital, Abu Dhabi, at least one person died after being struck by debris from an intercepted drone that airport authorities said had targeted Zayed International Airport. The Emirates’ defense ministry said at least 196 Iranian ballistic missiles have been launched toward the country on Saturday.
By Thursday, the atmosphere at the Dubai International was largely one of quiet trepidation. Volunteers from the Red Crescent Society of the Emirates handed out free meal boxes to passengers an hour before iftar, the fast-breaking meal during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan. Some people vied for the few remaining electric outlets to charge their cellphones or portable power banks.
Emirati government officials said that, depending on security assessments, they would eventually increase flights out of the country. “The next phase will include more than 80 scheduled flights per day, with a capacity to carry more than 27,000 passengers,” said the Emirati economy and tourism minister, Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri.
Jean Evite and her husband, who were visiting from the Philippines, were among those lucky enough to find a seat on the few flights out of the Emirates on Thursday.
“I’m a little bit nervous about flying out,” she said. “But we’re keeping good faith in the Lord that we will reach home safely.”
The Israeli military has achieved “almost complete aerial superiority” over Iran, having destroyed 80 percent of its air defenses, the Israeli chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said on Thursday. He said Israel also has destroyed about 60 percent of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers in nearly six days of airstrikes and was moving ahead to the “next phase of the campaign,” which will focus on further degrading Iran’s regime and military capabilities.
Israeli Air Force jets have carried out more than 2,500 strikes since Saturday, dropping more than 6,000 munitions, he said. On Thursday alone, the Israeli military struck 200 targets in western and central Iran.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe United States has suspended operations at its embassy in Kuwait City, the State Department said in a statement on Thursday. Kuwait’s air defenses are currently intercepting missile and drone attacks, the Kuwaiti army said in a statement posted to social media a few hours before the U.S. embassy’s operational suspension was announced. The State Department said there have been no reported injuries to U.S. personnel. Though Kuwait’s army did not specify the source of the missile attacks in its statement, the country’s state news agency reported that the country has intercepted dozens of ballistic missiles and drone attacks from Iran since the conflict began.
A fire at a state-owned oil refinery in Bahrain started by an Iranian missile strike is now under control, with limited material damage and no lives lost, Bahrain’s interior ministry said on Thursday night.
Separately, the ministry of Bahrain said late on Thursday that it had arrested four people who posted videos related to “malicious Iranian aggression and expressing sympathy with it.” The ministry said such posts contributed to “misleading public opinion,” spread fear and threatened security.
President Trump said on Thursday that he should have a role in choosing Iran’s new leader, and that Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the former leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who appeared to be the leading candidate to succeed his father, was an “unacceptable” choice.
Mr. Trump’s comments, in interviews with Reuters and Axios, were the most specific he has been about his vision of a U.S. role in creating a new government in Tehran. They made clear that Mr. Trump’s model for Iran, as he told The New York Times in an interview on Sunday, was to replicate the installation of a new president in Venezuela after a Delta team seized Nicolás Maduro and sent him to a federal prison in Brooklyn, where he is awaiting trial.
Mr. Trump’s insistence that he needed to have a role in the selection of Iran’s future leadership added to the confusion over the question of what his ultimate goals are in military action against the country.
His top aides, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have insisted that regime change is not on the list of U.S. objectives. They have spoken about ending the nuclear program and destroying Iran’s arsenal of missiles that can reach Israel, the Arab states of the Middle East and parts of Europe.
Mr. Hegseth said on Wednesday that the United States was using “twice the air power of ‘shock and awe’ of Iraq in 2003,” but insisted the administration would not engage in the kind of nation-building efforts that President George W. Bush did. He specifically mentioned the work of Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, who was deeply involved in helping set up the Iraqi government.
But Mr. Trump has repeatedly returned to the topic of selecting new leadership in Iran, even if he has not explained how, and has avoided the term “nation building.” He is determined to make sure American troops are not deployed inside Iran, though that will sharply diminish his ability to influence events.
Asked about Mr. Trump’s goals, Karoline Leavitt, the president’s press secretary, repeated what Mr. Trump told Axios.
“The president stated: ‘We want to be involved in the process of choosing the person who is going to lead Iran into the future, so we don’t have to go back every five years and do this again and again,” she said. “Somebody that’s going to be great for the people, great for the country.’”
She did not add to the president’s comments.
Mr. Trump keeps returning to the Venezuela example as a model for what should be accomplished in Iran, even though many analysts have noted huge differences between Iran — a country of 92 million people run by a complex mix of clerics and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — and Venezuela. Despite the shortcoming in the analogy, in conversations with world leaders and members of Congress, he has cited the outcome in Venezuela repeatedly.
But on the question of who should run Iran, he has offered several answers in recent days.
On Saturday, as the attacks began, he called on the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the existing government. On Sunday, he told The New York Times that he had three candidates for supreme leader in mind, though he later told ABC News that he believed all three had been killed in days of U.S. and Israeli airstrikes.
His comments to Axios, and then to Reuters, are bound to remind Iranians of a period in their history taught in the country’s schools: the coup in 1953, run by the C.I.A., that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, to ensure that Britain had access to Iranian oil.
That coup ultimately led to the installation of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi as the shah of Iran. He was overthrown in the 1979 Iranian revolution that ushered in a half-century of theocratic rule.
President Barack Obama acknowledged the C.I.A.’s role in the Iranian coup in a 2009 speech in Cairo, saying that “the United States played a significant role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.” He was criticized by Republicans at the time for seeming to apologize for America’s past interventions in Iranian politics.
Iran complained that while Mr. Obama acknowledged the coup plot, he did not apologize for it. The United States has since declassified some of the documents about the operation, which was run on the ground in Iran by Kermit Roosevelt Jr., a storied intelligence officer and grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. He was secretly awarded a medal for his work in Iran by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTNATO has increased its air defenses and missile alert levels across the military alliance, a day after officials said an Iranian missile was intercepted as it headed toward an air base in Turkey where American troops are stationed. A NATO military spokesman, Col. Martin O’Donnell, did not provide details. But the move gives the top NATO commander, Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, “exactly what he needs to defend the alliance based on the current threat and defend it he will!” Colonel O’Donnell said in a statement.
The evacuation advisory issued by the State Department this week for 14 countries and the Palestinian territories has left well over 100,000 American citizens with limited options to leave the Middle East as the conflict has spread throughout the region.
Precise numbers of U.S. citizens living in each of the 14 countries are challenging to track. A New York Times analysis of publicly available federal and United Nations data suggests that roughly 150,000 to 200,000 Americans live in the region, which includes Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A majority of these Americans reside in Israel, which has a large population of dual citizens.
Separately, there’s also a significant U.S. military presence in the Middle East, numbering more than 50,000, with more troops on the way.
Earlier this week the State Department urged Americans to depart via commercial means, even as a wide corridor of airspace shut down. The State Department has since said it will charter free flights, though it has offered few details. The department reported on Thursday that it offered assistance to 10,000 Americans in the Middle East, and that nearly 20,000 citizens had returned to the United States, with many more to other countries — a fraction of those in the region.
The Indian Navy said on Thursday it had received a distress call from the Sri Lankan navy on Wednesday morning about the Iranian warship IRIS Dena, which was torpedoed by a U.S. submarine in the Indian Ocean. In a statement, the Indian Navy said it had joined the search and rescue efforts led by Sri Lanka, deploying maritime refueling aircraft and ships. The statement came more than 30 hours after the sinking of the Iranian frigate and followed widespread criticism of Indian officials for remaining silent. Dozens of Iranian saliors have been reported dead or missing.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTPrice of Brent Crude Oil
Oil prices jumped and stocks fell on Thursday, as the U.S.-Israel led war with Iran began to widen outside the Middle East, rattling financial markets and governments around the world.
The jump in oil prices has raised inflation concerns globally, hitting both stock and bond markets in a stark example of how intertwined the global economy is with the oil-exporting nations of the Persian Gulf. Shipments of crude and natural gas from the gulf have slowed significantly since the attacks and counterattacks.
Higher oil prices passed onto consumers at the pump, or to businesses in the form of increased diesel costs, could dampen the U.S. economy. Those concerns have weighed on the stock market, though major benchmarks have been volatile as investors try and assess how long the conflict could last.
There have also been other things impacting the stock market besides Iran. The sharp sell off in software stocks this year, for example, seemed to hit its nadir just before the war began and this unloved part of the market has been rallying while most other stocks have been falling, helping to mute some volatility of individual stocks from showing up in the price of the overall index.
Brent crude futures, the international benchmark, rose 4.9 percent to more than $85 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate, the domestic benchmark, crossed above $80 a barrel, after gaining more than 8 percent. Both measures are at the highest they’ve been since around July 2024. Brent crude has risen almost 20 percent this week alone, while the benchmark is up over 40 percent for the year, rising from around $60 at the end of 2025.
The S&P 500 tumbled 0.6 percent in early afternoon trading, and the index is now in negative territory for the year. Stock investors are also grappling with a report by Bloomberg News that the government is drafting sweeping rules to control the sale of the high powered computer chips used for artificial intelligence. Nvidia, the largest company in the S&P 500, fell as much as 2.8 percent on Thursday before rebounding to a loss of less than 1 percent.
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The price for a gallon of regular gasoline, on average, was over $3.25 in the United States on Thursday. Diesel prices rose to over $4 a gallon this week, on average, their highest price since April 2024. Oil is the biggest factor in the price of gas for American drivers, and gas prices are up about 9 percent this week.
Government bond yields, which underpin borrowing costs for consumers and companies, continued to rise. The 10-year Treasury yield has risen to 4.13 percent this week, from 3.93 percent before the war began, a gain that reflects concerns about inflation. That’s equivalent to roughly one standard interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTA day after an Iranian ship was torpedoed by the U.S. in the waters near Sri Lanka, the country’s president said his government has allowed a second Iranian ship to dock in one of its ports and allowed its crew into the country.
Appearing on television, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake of Sri Lanka said that the second Iranian naval vessel, the IRINS Bushehr, asked the Sri Lankan government if it could dock at one of the country’s ports.
Sri Lankan officials decided to bring the 208 people on the ship — 53 officers, 84 cadet officers, 48 senior sailors, 23 sailors — to Colombo, the capital, and take the ship into custody in Trincomalee, on the east coast, rather than in Colombo, one of the busiest commercial ports in the world.
Sri Lanka, which has taken a neutral position on the conflict, is being forced to weigh its self-interest against the possibility of angering the United States and Israel for helping Iran. At the same time, Sri Lanka’s navy continues to sieve from the water any wreckage from the destroyed warship, treat injured sailors and brace for the economic hit it might take as the war pushes up oil prices.
Sri Lanka’s plight is an example of the spillover effect of a regional conflict that is dragging in faraway countries. The war has already engulfed around a dozen countries in the six days since it started. On Thursday, Azerbaijan was hit by two Iranian drones, a day after NATO intercepted what it said was an Iranian missile headed in Turkey’s direction.
On Thursday, Sri Lanka’s foreign minister Vijitha Herath posted on X that he had spoken with his Iranian counterpart and “expressed grave concern over the escalation of hostilities.”
Sri Lanka and Iran have solid political and economic ties. The former bought $250 million worth of crude oil shipments from Iran before sanctions on the Middle Eastern country kicked in over its nuclear program. The two sides agreed to an “oil-for-tea” barter deal, which allows Sri Lanka to pay Iran in monthly installments of tea, a top export to Iran.
Bilateral ties are especially important for Sri Lanka, which has struggled to right its economy in recent years after defaulting on its sovereign debt. American tariffs have been an additional burden. Mr. Herath said on Wednesday that ties with Iran had “broadened significantly” under the tenure of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the recently slain Iranian leader. In January, he and Iran’s foreign minister spoke over the phone about Iran’s escalating hostilities with Israel and the United States, and said Sri Lanka was committed to strengthening relations.
That friendship is being put to the test this week, as the second ship, an auxiliary vessel, sought to dock in Sri Lanka.
The ship is sitting in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone, defined under United Nations maritime law as a stretch of sea, beyond a country’s territorial waters, to which it has sovereign exploration rights.
Mr. Dissanayake said that officials from the foreign ministries of Iran and Sri Lanka, along with diplomats and defense officials, had been in discussions since the call from the Bushehr came on Wednesday as the Sri Lankan government debated how to handle the issue after agreeing to take the ship into custody. The ship’s crew members had said that one of its engines was in trouble, and that Sri Lanka offered humanitarian help.
“Our seas and skies can’t be used by another nation for their own gain or to harm another nation,” Mr. Dissanayake said. “Our actions since the beginning of the incident have been in line with that stance.”
The IRIS Dena was also in Sri Lanka’s E.E.Z. when a U.S. submarine took it down using a torpedo.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the ship’s fate a “quiet death,” while Iran called the attack an “atrocity at sea.” India, which hosted the navy exercises that the Iran ships were returning from, has not commented.
On Thursday, the Sri Lanka Navy was still searching for sailors who are believed missing from the IRIS Dena, a day after it found 84 bodies in oil-slicked water, amid life rafts and other flotsam. The navy said it rescued 32 people, who were taken to the emergency ward of National Hospital Galle, one of the country’s biggest hospitals. It was unclear whether the ship was carrying 180 people, a number provided by Sri Lankan authorities, or 130, a number provided by Iranian officials.
The survivors were treated for burn injuries and other cuts and scrapes, and all except one were in mostly good shape. Some of the sailors were expected to be discharged from the hospital and taken to the Iranian Embassy in Colombo, the nation’s capital that is a half-hour drive away from Galle.
After Nalinda Jayatissa, the cabinet spokesman, disclosed the second ship’s presence to Sri Lanka’s Parliament on Thursday, the opposition leader, Sajith Premadasa, said that a country’s E.E.Z. “is for peaceful purposes, not for military action.” Such action within that zone is “a death blow to our sovereignty,” he said.
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