India FM S. Jaishankar Confirms An Iranian Naval Ship Is Docked At Kochi Port

Dubai : An Iranian navy ship docked in India on Saturday, India’s foreign minister said.

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said that IRIS Lavan docked in the southern city of Kochi after India gave permission after the ship reported “having trouble” on March 1. India news agency Press Trust, citing unnamed “government sources”, had previously reported that the ship had been in Kochi since March 4.

“I think this is the humane thing to do,” Jaishankar said.

On Wednesday, a US submarine sank the Iranian warship IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka. Another Iranian ship, IRIS Bushehr, requested help from Sri Lanka, where more than 200 sailors were brought ashore.

The ships had previously participated in naval exercises hosted by India, but Jaishankar said they were “caught on the wrong side of things” after the war began.

Iran’s president said on Saturday that the United States’ demand for unconditional surrender was “a dream they should take to their grave.”

President Masoud Pezeshkian made this statement in a pre-recorded speech broadcast on state television.

He also apologized for Iran’s attacks on regional countries, saying Tehran would stop them and claiming that they were due to miscommunication within the ranks. He blamed the killing of the country’s religious leader and other senior officials for what appeared to be a loss of command and control in the armed forces in recent days.

The comments came as Iran’s intense fire targeted Gulf Arab states in the early hours of Saturday, while Israel and the United States continued airstrikes targeting the Islamic Republic.

Communication breakdown within Iranian ranks Pezeshkian said on Saturday that the country’s three-man leadership council was in contact with the armed forces regarding the attacks.

“I must personally apologize to neighboring countries that were attacked by Iran,” the president said. “From now on, they should not attack neighboring countries, they should not fire missiles at them unless they attack us. I think we need to solve this through diplomacy.”

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, on the front lines of the war, answers only to the country’s religious leader. However, at the beginning of the war on February 28, 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli air strike.

US says more intense bombings ahead There was no foreseeable end to the conflict. US President Donald Trump’s administration has approved a new $151 million arms sale to Israel after Trump said Iran would not negotiate without “unconditional surrender” and warned of an impending bombing campaign that US officials said would be the most intense so far in the week-long conflict.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a television interview on Friday that the “largest bombing campaign” of the war had yet to occur.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN said the country would “take all necessary measures” to defend itself.

Video from The Associated Press showed explosions and smoke rising west of Tehran as Israel said it launched a broad wave of attacks.

The United States and Israel have hammered Iran with attacks targeting Iran’s military capabilities, leadership, and nuclear program. Stated goals and timelines for the war have changed repeatedly, as the United States has at times suggested it aims to overthrow the Iranian government or elevate new leadership from within.

The clashes have killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 200 in Lebanon and nearly a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six US soldiers were killed.

Iran hits Gulf states as conflict spreads Sirens sounded in Bahrain early Saturday in a sign of the widening nature of the conflict as Iran’s attacks targeted the island kingdom. Saudi Arabia said it destroyed unmanned aerial vehicles heading towards the vast Shaiba oil field and shot down a ballistic missile launched towards Prince Sultan Air Base, where US forces are based.

Multiple explosions were heard in Dubai on Saturday morning and the government said it had activated air defenses. Passengers waiting for flights at Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest airport in terms of international travel, found themselves being lowered into the train tunnels at the large airport after the alarm went off.

Later that morning, long-haul carrier Emirates said “all flights to and from Dubai have been suspended until further notice.”

Shortly afterwards, the decision was reversed and Emirates announced that the airline would continue operations. The news caused joy at Dubai International Airport, where passengers took shelter when they heard a huge explosion. Authorities did not disclose whether there was any intervention or damage at the airport, which is the world’s busiest airport in terms of international travel.

Qatar warns that the current war could ‘collapse economies’ Qatar’s energy minister, Saad al-Kaabi, warned in an interview with the Financial Times that the war could “collapse world economies” and predicted that a large-scale halt of energy exports in the Gulf could cause oil to rise to $150 per barrel.

The price of a barrel of benchmark US crude oil rose above $90 on Friday for the first time in more than two years.

A regional analyst writing for Al Jazeera, the Qatar-funded satellite news network, warned that Iran was making a “strategic miscalculation of historic proportions”. Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite news network owned and funded by the Qatari government, has been used in the past to report Doha’s views on regional issues.

Sultan al-Khulaifi, a senior fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, wrote: “By expanding the conflict to the Gulf, Tehran is doing exactly what Israel cannot do on its own: moving the war away from the Israel-Iran axis and turning it into a conflict between Iran and its Arab neighbors.”

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are discussing how to stop attacks from Iran. On Saturday, Saudi Arabia’s defense minister and Pakistan’s army chief met to discuss ways to stop attacks from Iran, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported.

King Salman’s son, Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman, discussed Iranian attacks with Field Marshal Asim Munir in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan have signed a joint defense agreement that treats any attack on either country as an attack on both.

Additionally, missiles from Iran early on Saturday caused people to head to bomb shelters across Israel, and large explosions were heard in Jerusalem. There were no reports of casualties from Israel’s emergency services.

Clashes reported with Israeli troops in eastern Lebanon Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with an Israeli force that had advanced into the mountains of eastern Lebanon late on Friday.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Saturday that at least 16 people were killed and 35 injured in subsequent Israeli attacks.

Israel did not acknowledge the conflict and its military did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Israel carried out air strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah is concentrated but also where hundreds of thousands of civilians live.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said more than 200 people had been killed and more than 800 injured in Israeli attacks since Monday.