On the third day after the U.S. and Israel’s joint strike on Iran, conflict in the Middle East threatens to escalate further. Iran has carried out retaliatory strikes on nine countries, targeting U.S. bases and energy sites in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, U.A.E, Qatar and elsewhere.

Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.

• Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.
• Get exclusive access to the Vancouver Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.
• Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.
• Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.
• Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.

Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.

• Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.
• Get exclusive access to the Vancouver Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.
• Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.
• Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.
• Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.

Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.

• Access articles from across Canada with one account.
• Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.
• Enjoy additional articles per month.
• Get email updates from your favourite authors.

Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.

• Access articles from across Canada with one account
• Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments
• Enjoy additional articles per month
• Get email updates from your favourite authors

Sign In or Create an Account

or View more offers

U.S. has said it expects to incur casualties as Iran presses on with its attacks. Flights through the region’s hub airports have been cancelled, disrupting international travel for many thousands of people, Agence France-Presse reports.

Live updates: Trump says U.S. prepared for Iran operation to last a month or ‘far longer’ Back to video

Here’s the latest:

‘Next phase will be even more punishing on Iran’: Rubio

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. military would step up its attacks against Iran, a stark warning after two days of strikes across the country that the Trump administration says took out its leadership targeted its ballistic-missile program.

“I’m not going to give away the details of our tactical efforts, but the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military,” Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill. “The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now.”

Rubio was on the Hill to brief members of Congress on President Donald Trump’s campaign along with Israel to target Iran. He offered more clarity on the U.S. objectives, saying the focus was to destroy the country’s ballistic missile program, which he argued it was using as a shield to fuel its nuclear ambitions, as well as its naval fleet and attack drones.

U.A.E., Qatar look to build coalition to push for fast, diplomatic end to Iran hostilities

The United Arab Emirates and Qatar are privately lobbying allies to help them persuade President Donald Trump to reach for an off-ramp that would keep U.S. military operations against Iran short, according to people familiar with the matter.

The countries are seeking to build a wide coalition to advance a swift and diplomatic end to the conflict, the people said, in order to prevent regional escalation and a prolonged energy price shock.

1. Advertisement 1

   Story continues below

   This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

A Qatari assessment shared with Bloomberg News warned that if shipping lanes in the region remain severely disrupted by the middle of this week they would expect to see a more significant market reaction for natural gas prices than Monday’s sharp spike.

Since the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran on Saturday, the conflict has widened fast — drawing in countries that say they aren’t part of it as their bases, infrastructure and citizens are exposed to retaliation.

Privately, both the UAE and Qatar are working to quickly improve their air defence capabilities, the people familiar with the matter said.

Congress to vote on curbing Trump’s power in Iran conflict

The U.S. Congress is scheduled to vote this week on motions seeking to curb President Donald Trump as he wages war against Iran but the Republican majority will probably shield him.

In late January, as a huge U.S. military buildup in the Middle East rumbled on, Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat, introduced a bill designed to force Trump to obtain authorization from Congress to engage in any military conflict with Iran. On Saturday he urged Congress to return immediately from recess to vote on his resolution.

This issue of whether there was an imminent threat from Iran is at the heart of the debate over the war that Trump has now begun with Israel.

Although only Congress can declare war, a law dating back to 1973 allows the president to launch a limited military intervention in response to an emergency situation created by an attack on the United States.

At a news conference Monday, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth used the word “war” to describe the conflict with Iran, not just a limited military intervention.

Air Canada restricts travel to the region

Air Canada announced Monday that it has suspended all flights to and from Dubai and Tel Aviv, with a plan to restart on March 23.

In a press release shared on social media, the airline also told passengers not to head to the airport if they are in either of these regions. “Your safety is our top priority,” it said

The airline said it will contact customers directly, and that changes to flights can be made free of charge. It added that customers travelling to other cities in the area until March 15 can change their flights free of charge to another date between now and March 31, subject to availability and provided the ticket was purchased no later than Feb. 28.

The list of affected cities are Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Amman, Jordan; Beirut, Lebanon; Dammam, Saudi Arabia; and Erbil, Iraq, as well as Dubai and Tel Aviv.

Strait of Hormuz will remain closed, says senior official of Revolutionary Guards

The Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping path for global trade, will be closed, a senior Iranian official has said.

According to a quote in Iranian state media cited by Reuters, Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the Guards commander-in-chief, said: “If anyone tries to pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guards and the regular navy will set those ships ablaze.”

The Strait of Hormuz, an important choke point for shipping, lies between Iran and Oman. Only 33 km at it’s narrowest point, the seaway is where nearly 21 million barrels of oil passes through each day much of it from Gulf nations to the rest of the world.

Iran’s president condemns attack on school and hospital

Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian condemned the attacks on civilians in Iranian schools and hospitals, in a post on X.

“Attacks on hospitals strike at life itself. Attacks on schools target a nation’s future. Targeting patients and children blatantly violates humanitarian principles. The world must condemn it. I stand with my grieving nation. Iran will not remain silent or yield to these crimes,” he wrote.

The deadliest single strike so far came on Saturday at an all girl’s school in southeastern Iran, where more than 150 students and teachers were reported to have been killed while another 96 were injured.

Khamenei’s wife also killed in strikes, Iranian state media reports

Former Iranian leader Ali Khamenei’s wife was also killed in the strikes on Saturday, Iranian state media reported earlier today. Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh was previously reported to have remained in a coma after suffering injuries in the attack. Khamenei’s daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter were also killed in the strikes.

Countries largely urge diplomacy, remain on sidelines

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte praised the U.S. and Israeli military campaign but added that there are no plans for the alliance to enter the conflict.

“It’s really important what the U.S. is doing there, together with Israel, because it is taking out, degrading the capacity of Iran to get its hands on nuclear capability, the ballistic missile capability,” he told German broadcaster ARD, according to Reuters.

“There are absolutely no plans whatever for NATO to get dragged into this or being part of it, other than individual allies doing what they can to enable what the Americans are doing together with Israel,” he added.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz left for Washington on Monday to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of a previously scheduled meeting on Ukraine. Merz, who has been a vocal critic of Iran’s regime expressed “relief” that the “mullah regime is coming to an end,” AFP reported.

Germany, U.K. and France have said they are prepared to offer “defensive” support against Iran to protect their interests in the Gulf region if necessary. Canada, while expressing approval for the U.S. attack, has said it would not become involved.

The British government has said it would allow the U.S. to use British bases after a Royal Air Force base in Cyprus was hit by an Iranian drone.

France to increase stockpile of nuclear warheads for first time since 1992

French President Emmanuel Macron announced Monday that France will increase its nuclear arsenal in a new strategy aimed at strengthening Europe’s independence. “To be free, one needs to be feared,” Macron said.

Macron said the move “provide(s) for the temporary deployment of elements of our strategic air forces to allied countries,” but noted the country would make independent decisions. Talks have started with Britain, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark, Macron said.

France was adding two more warships to the bloc’s naval mission in the region. But “they would only deploy to the distant Red Sea and Gulf of Aden — gateways to the Suez Canal, which links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean — to join three other ships already in place,” AP reports.

China, Russia condemn attacks

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said one of its citizen was killed by Saturday’s strikes and more than 3,000 have been evacuated. Experts tell AFP a prolonged war in the region would prove costly for China, which receives much of its energy through the Strait of Hormuz.

The country’s leadership repeatedly called for an end to the conflict since it began on Saturday. “The attack and killing of Iran’s supreme leader is a grave violation of Iran’s sovereignty and security. It tramples on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and basic norms in international relations. China firmly opposes and strongly condemns it,” the foreign ministry wrote yesterday on X.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin called Ali Khamenei’s “a murder committed in cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law.”

“In our country, Ayatollah Khamenei will be remembered as an outstanding statesman who made a huge personal contribution to the development of friendly Russian-Iranian relations, bringing them to the level of a comprehensive strategic partnership,” the Russian president said, according to Euro News.

U.S. says it struck Iranian drone carrier

One of the U.S. military’s strikes on Saturday hit the Shahid Bagheri, a naval drone carrier, United States Central Command said.

The X post also denied Iranian media reports that the country’s regime had struck a U.S. aircraft carrier.

Trump says he’s prepared for campaign to go longer than four or five weeks

President Donald Trump said the war could take longer than the “four or five weeks” initially projected.

“Whatever the time is, it’s OK. Whatever it takes,” he said. “We have capability to go far longer than that. We’ll do it.”

Trump earlier told CNN the U.S. had killed 49 Iranian leaders, some of whom were being considered to lead the country.

Trump says Iran was close to producing long-range missile that could reach U.S.

Trump said Iran was close to developing a missile capable of striking the U.S. during his first press briefing since the start of the war.

“The regime already had missiles capable of hitting Europe and our bases, both local and overseas, and would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America”, he said, adding: “The purpose of this fast-growing missile program was to shield their nuclear weapon development and make it extraordinarily difficult for anyone to stop them from making these highly forbidden, by us, nuclear weapons.”

The U.S. has “already” sunk 10 Iranian naval ships, he said.

“Today we grieve for the four heroic American service members who have been killed in action and send our love and support to their families in their memory,” said Trump, who was speaking at a Medal of Honor ceremony.

“We continue this mission with ferocious, unyielding resolve to crush the threat this terrorist regime poses to the American people and a threat, indeed it is.”

The event concluded without Trump taking any questions.

Trump says bigger attacks to come; says he doesn’t care about polling

Trump says attacks on Iran will escalate and warned of “the big wave” that would arrive.

“We haven’t even started hitting them hard,” Trump said in an interview with CNN. “The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon.”

Trump said he didn’t want the conflict to go on too long and that “I always thought it would be four weeks, and we’re a little ahead of schedule.”

In an interview with NY Post, Trump said he has not ruled out sending troops to Iran.

“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump said. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ (or) ‘if they were necessary.’”

Trump said he believes he “did the right thing” in attacking Iran and that he’s not concerned about polling.

“I think that the polling is very good, but I don’t care about polling. I have to do the right thing. I have to do the right thing. This should have been done a long time ago,” he said.

The Post noted that the initial reaction to the strikes among Americans have been negative.

Pete Hegseth says Iran campaign targeting nukes, navy

In a briefing this morning, the United States defense secretary Pete Hegseth declined to rule out putting troops on the ground in Iran and indicated the war launched over the weekend could go on for as long as six weeks.

U.S. forces began carrying out sweeping strikes on Iran Saturday in concert with military action by Israel, and have struck hundreds of targets across the country since then, including the Islamic republic’s missiles, navy and command-and-control sites.

When asked if the U.S. already had boots on the ground, Pentagon chief Hegseth, told a news conference: “No, but we’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do.”

“We’ll go as far as we need to go,” he said.

Hegseth sought to differentiate the Iran operation from past long-running U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying the war is not an effort to build democracy in Iran.

“This is not Iraq. This is not endless,” he said. “Our generation knows better and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation building wars ‘dumb’ and he’s right.”

— With files from AFP

Anand won’t say whether Canada considers strikes on Iran as legal

Speaking to reporters in New Delhi on Monday, Foreign Minister Anita Anand would not say whether Canada considered Saturday’s strikes on Iran to be in violation of international law. Anand noted that Canada was not involved in the operation and “stressed” that Canada wanted talks to open up “as soon as possible.”

“We prefer a diplomatic solution. This is why I have spent the last two days speaking with my counterparts across the Middle East and in the Gulf states, from Jordan, to Qatar, to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to U.A.E and all of my G7 counterparts, stressing that Canada believes in a diplomatic and peaceful solution, and as soon as possible, we would like parties to get to the table,” Anand said.

https://twitter.com/AnitaAnandMP/status/2028473737729933693

Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement on Saturday that he supported the U.S. operation in Iran.

“Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security, and the Canadian government urges the protection of all civilians in this conflict,” said Carney, before a scheduled speech in Mumbai, India.

Kuwait accidentally shoots three U.S. fighter jets, incident under investigation

Three U.S. Air Force fighter jets crashed after they were shot down by Kuwaiti air defences on Monday due to apparent friendly fire.

“During active combat — that included attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones — the three U.S. F-15E Strike Eagles were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

The crew members, all six of them, ejected safely and have been safely recovered. The incident has been acknowledged by Kuwait and the cause of it is under investigation. Although such incidents are not uncommon during intense air combat, “the U.S. hasn’t lost multiple jets to enemy fire since early in the 2003 invasion of Iraq,” Bloomberg notes.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.