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Four of the six crew members aboard a US military refuelling aircraft were killed after it crashed in western Iraq, the US military’s Central Command said on Friday.

Search and rescue efforts are underway to locate the two remaining crewmembers.

The US military says it has also launched an investigation to determine the cause of the crash, but did preliminarily rule out hostile or friendly fire against the aircraft as possible causes.

“The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” wrote the US Central Command in a post on X.

The post added that the identities of the deceased US troops are being withheld for 24 hours until their families and loved ones are notified. 

A large explosion struck Iran’s capital Tehran on Friday at a square filled with demonstrators participating in the annual Quds Day protests, in solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli occupation, Iranian state television reported.

The explosion hit Ferdowsi Square, just down Enghelab Street from Tehran University, the epicentre of demonstrations which have been every year since the Islamic Republic was founded following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Videos published by the semi-official Tasnim news agency showed a plume of smoke rising as demonstrators screamed “Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!”

The cause of the blast was not immediately clear, but Israel’s defence forces had issued “emergency warnings” notifying people in the square and other areas across the capital that Israeli attacks were imminent.

Just before the Tehran strike, an explosion shook the city of Qazvin, which Israel also had warned it would target.

People reported other strikes in Tehran around the same time, though there was no immediate information on what may have been struck, though Israel earlier stated that its attacks on Friday have targeted over 200 places, including many infrastructure sites.

Washington says it has temporarily waived sanctions on Russian oil stranded at sea as a temporary relief to global oil supply and export instabilities, caused by the US and Israel’s war on Iran, which has expanded to neighbouring Gulf states, responsible for much of the world’s gas and crude production and export.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the temporary measure late on Thursday, allowing countries to buy the Kremlin’s crude, which it had previously sanctioned as part of its efforts to pressure Moscow into ending its war in Ukraine.

Trump administration officials are hoping the measure can restore low prices of oil, which has recently seen prices soar to above $100 a barrel, and a few days earlier, Brent crude spiking to around $120.

“This narrowly tailored, short-term measure applies only to oil already in transit and will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government, which derives the majority of its energy revenue from taxes assessed at the point of extraction,” Bessent claimed.

It comes as Iran continues to target Gulf Arab nations’ energy infrastructure, disrupting production, as well as shipping, as it moved to strike commercial vessels in the chokepoint Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global oil passes.

US President Donald Trump has previously stated that the US Navy will soon be able to escort oil tankers through the tight waterway, and provide it coverage from Iranian attacks.

It’s not yet clear when Washington would be able to securely offer such service, leaving much of the world in a frenzy and rattling global markets. 

Residents in the northern Israeli city of Zarzir heard loud explosions as they ran into a shelter early on Friday morning and emerged to find much of the area in ruins.

Authorities say nearly 60 people were injured in the missile strike on the Arab-Israeli city near the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah said that it fired several rocket salvos towards northern Israel and Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

Residents said missiles from Hezbollah destroyed houses and left people scrambling to help relatives between the rubble.

Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry says the remains of 84 Iranian sailors killed in a US submarine attack on 4 March have been handed over to Iranian representatives for repatriation.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Thushara Rodrigo said Colombo completed the procedure for repatriating the remains of foreigners and handed over the bodies of the crew members from Iranian warship IRIS Dena, which was sunk by a US torpedo attack.

They will be flown to Iran from Hambantota airport in southern Sri Lanka on Friday, added Rodrigo.

Another 32 sailors from IRIS Dena were rescued by Sri Lanka’s navy.

More than 200 Iranian sailors also were brought ashore by Sri Lanka’s navy from a second Iranian warship. The vessels were returning from a naval exercise in India.

Israel issued a strike warning Friday for an area near Tehran University that was hosting the annual Quds Day demonstrations.

The warning showed a strike being possible along Enghelab Street near the university. The area is filled with demonstrators at the moment.

Tehran University is the site of Friday prayers in the city, where demonstrators will gather later at noon.

The warning in Farsi said the Israeli military “will conduct operations in this area in the coming hours.”

“We kindly urge you to immediately evacuate the designated area indicated on the map,” the message said. “Your presence in these areas puts your life at risk.”

Iranian state television aired footage on Friday showing thousands of people taking part in the annual Quds Day celebrations across the country. Quds is the Arabic name of Jerusalem.

Demonstrators chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” while carrying Iranian flags in support of the military forces fighting against the US and Israel.

People joined the rallies in Tehran despite ongoing US-Israeli strikes taking place during the commemoration.

Iran has been marking Quds Day on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

A building at the Dubai International Financial Centre sustained damage on Friday after what authorities described as a “successful interception” of an incoming Iranian drone.

The building, known as the DIFC Innovation Hub, bore fire damage, with pieces of its facade having reportedly been torn away.

The Dubai Media Office earlier described the incident as “a successful interception.” It did not elaborate on what had been intercepted, nor did it acknowledge the damage done to DIFC.

DIFC is an economic free zone for banks, capital traders and wealth managers, home to exclusive restaurants and nightclubs for the city-state’s elite.

Iran’s joint military command on Wednesday said banks and financial institutions were now a target in the Middle East after an airstrike hit a historic bank in Tehran.

The Israeli military says it has destroyed a bridge on the Litani River in south Lebanon.

The military’s Arabic spokesman, Avichae Adraee, posted on X that the bridge destroyed in the village of Zrariyeh was used by Hezbollah fighters to move between the areas south and north of the river.

The military added that Hezbollah forces near the bridge fired rockets into Israel during the current Israel-Hezbollah war.

In a separate post, Adraee issued immediate evacuation orders to residents of seven settlements across the Lebanese capital’s southern Dahieh neighbourhood, warning of imminent wide-scale Israeli operations.

The area has been a daily target for Israel, which it claims harbours Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters, logistics and command centres and critical infrastructure for the group. 

Israel’s air force struck more than 200 targets in western and central Iran in the past day, the army said.

Fighter jets struck ballistic missile launchers, defence systems and weapon production sites.

The IDF said on Friday it began a wave of strikes targeting infrastructure across Iran.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological arm of the country's military, warned on Friday that any new protests against the authorities would be met with a stronger response than in January, when several thousand people were killed.

"The evil enemy, failing to achieve its field battle goals, is once again pursuing the instillation of fear and street riots," the Guards said in a statement broadcast on state-run broadcasters, promising "a stronger blow than on January 8" in the event of new unrest.

The warning comes two weeks into Iran's war with the United States and Israel in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says one of the aims is to "create, for the Iranian people, the conditions to bring down" the Iranian government.

US President Donald Trump has also called for Iranians to rise up and overthrow their government.

Sirens wailed early on Friday at Turkey's Incirlik airbase, a key NATO facility where US troops are stationed near the southern city of Adana, state news agency Anadolu reported.

There was no immediate official comment on the incident, which took place four days after NATO air defences shot down a ballistic missile in Turkish airspace that was fired from Iran, the second in five days.

Residents of Adana, which lies 10 kilometres (six miles) from the base, were woken up at 3:25 am local time by sirens, which sounded for around five minutes, according to local media outlets.

It said a red alert sounded at the base.

The Israeli military said it launched a new wave of strikes in Tehran on Friday morning, on the 14th day of its joint campaign with the United States against the Islamic Republic.

"The IDF has just begun a wide-scale wave of strikes targeting infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime across Tehran," the military said.

US President Donald Trump issued a new threat online to Iran, writing in a post on his own social media platform, Truth Social: “Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today.”

Trump shared the post on Friday, adding that “Iran’s Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth.”

“They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them,” Trump wrote. “What a great honour it is to do so!”

Saudi Arabia’s Defence Ministry said early on Friday that its air defences had downed 10 more drones headed toward the kingdom’s eastern and central provinces, bringing the total to nearly 50 drones entering Saudi airspace over the span of a few hours on Friday.

The barrage represents a higher-than-usual number of aerial threats for the kingdom, which has seen sites including the US Embassy in Riyadh, oil infrastructure, and a military base hosting US troops targeted as the war in Iran intensifies.

An Israeli strike hit a car in Jnah, a coastal neighbourhood in southwestern Beirut, killing one person, the Lebanese health ministry said early on Friday.

A separate strike targeted an apartment in the Nabaa neighbourhood, leaving it engulfed in flames, according to reports circulating on local media.

Nabaa, on Beirut’s northern outskirts within the densely populated Burj Hammoud district, is home to a sizable Armenian community. No casualties were immediately reported.

It was the first time such an area has been struck in this conflict or during the 2024 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Following the strikes, the Israeli army said it had targeted a Hezbollah member in Beirut

Both neighbourhoods are far from the southern suburbs of Beirut, which the Israeli military has declared unsafe and issued evacuation notices for.

Israel’s ambulance service said some 58 people were wounded in a missile attack on Zarzir, a city around 100 kilometres north of Jerusalem near the border with Lebanon, amid attacks launched from Iran and its Lebanon-based proxy, Hezbollah.

Officials said one person was in moderate condition and 57 sustained very minor injuries from glass shards.

Footage shared by the ambulance service from the impact site showed damaged cars and scattered debris. The Israeli military said it was operating with emergency services at the scene to clear debris.

Hezbollah said early on Friday that it had fired several rocket salvos toward northern Israel and Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

A French soldier was killed in an attack in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday, confirming the first French military death in the Middle East war.

Since US-Israeli strikes on Iran last month engulfed the Middle East in war, multiple attacks attributed to pro-Iranian factions have targeted the region where foreign forces are based as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition.

The member of the armed forces "died for France during an attack in the Erbil region of Iraq," Macron posted on X, adding that several soldiers were also wounded. He did not say who was behind the attack.

"The war in Iran cannot justify such attacks," Macron said, calling the strike "unacceptable".

Read the full article: 

French soldier killed in Iraq as Iran war fallout spreads

Saudi forces intercepted more than two dozen drones on Friday after renewed Iranian threats against oil facilities, as the regional conflict killed a French so…