Israel says killed Iran national security chief Larijani

 Israel said on Tuesday it had killed Iran's powerful national security chief, Ali Larijani, in what would be a huge blow to the Islamic republic as fresh strikes rocked the Middle East from Tehran to Baghdad. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Larijani was "eliminated last night", although this has not been confirmed by Iran.

Earlier Tuesday, Israel's military said Gholamreza Soleimani, head of the Basij paramilitary force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, was killed Monday in a strike on Tehran. Reports of their deaths come less than three weeks after US-Israeli strikes on February 28 killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader since 1989, triggering a war that has engulfed the region. He was replaced by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, whose whereabouts and health is the subject of much speculation. US President Donald Trump said Monday that "we don't know... if he's dead or not".

Hundreds of people have been killed and millions have been displaced because of the war, notably in Lebanon and Iran.The conflict has also sent oil prices soaring, after Iran's attacks on vessels transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that is key to the transit of crude and liquefied natural gas.Oil prices rose more than five percent early Tuesday after several countries pushed back on Trump's demand they help protect shipping.

Armada to Hormuz

An AFP reporter had earlier Tuesday reported blasts in Tehran, after a night of heavy bombardment mixed with thunder and rain.Israel's army said it had launched a wave of strikes "against Iranian terror regime infrastructure across Tehran", as well as strikes in Lebanon. Lebanese state media reported Israeli strikes at dawn hit a residential building in Beirut's southern suburbs, a stronghold of the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah. An AFP photographer saw firefighters tackling a blaze at the site of a strike, while rubble and debris were strewn across the road.

In retaliation for the US-Israel attacks, Iran has targeted US interests, energy facilities and civilian infrastructure of its energy-rich neighbours.Its threats and attacks on tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global crude oil passes, have also all but closed the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has called on world powers to help and on Monday demanded US allies join quickly and with "great enthusiasm" an armada to escort tankers through the strait.

He has warned that it would be "very bad" for the future of the NATO military alliance if the allies refused to help. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said London was working with allies to craft a "viable" plan to reopen the strait, but ruled out a NATO mission. Berlin also said it "has been clear at all times that this war is not a matter for NATO".

EU foreign ministers meeting Monday showed "no appetite" for extending their Red Sea naval mission to help reopen Hormuz, the bloc's top diplomat said. Analysts said it was not surprising that America's partners were unenthusiastic about joining a war they were not consulted on, after a year of tensions with Washington on everything from tariffs to Greenland.

The United States had "launched a war without consulting allies, expecting them to mop up the mess, and that's not going fly", said Erwan Lagadec of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. 

Defiant tone 

Trump on Monday admitted he was "shocked" at Iran's response to the US-Israel attacks."They weren't supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East.

Those missiles were set to go after them," he said."So, they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait. Nobody expected that. We were shocked."The Gulf has borne the brunt of Iran's attacks in response to US-Israeli strikes, with Tehran targeting US assets but also civilian infrastructure.

Falling debris from a missile intercept killed one person on Tuesday in the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi. More than 1,200 Iranians have been killed by US and Israeli strikes, according to the last toll from Iran's health ministry on March 8, which could not be independently verified.

Iraq drawn in

Western allies Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom also urged Israel to show restraint in Lebanon, where it has announced "limited" ground operations against Hezbollah. But Israel's President Isaac Herzog told AFP that Europe should support "any effort to eradicate Hezbollah now". Authorities in Lebanon have said more than one million people have registered as displaced since March 2, with more than 130,000 people staying in upwards of 600 collective shelters.

Lebanon was drawn into the war when Tehran-backed Hezbollah militants struck Israel over Khamenei's killing.Iraq, long a proxy battleground between the United States and Iran, has also been drawn in.A drone and rocket attack targeted the US embassy in Baghdad early Tuesday, while a strike killed four people at a house reportedly hosting Iranian advisors, security officials said. An AFP journalist reported seeing black smoke rising after an explosion in the embassy complex, as well as air defences intercepting another drone.