US soldiers in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain targeted in fresh Iranian attacks as Hegseth warns Tehran faces ‘most intense day’ of strikes: Live updates

Pete Hegseth has declared the US will unleash the ‘most intense day of strikes’ inside Iran at a Pentgaon press briefing in Washington.

The Defense Secretary said the US will ‘not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated’.

His comments come after Tehran threatened Donald Trump after the President said he did not believe the new Supreme Leader can ‘live in peace’.

Here are the latest developments on the US-Israel war as it entered its 11th day.

• Donald Trump said the war could be over ‘very soon’ and claimed the US has ‘already won’ but Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was ‘not done’ with Iran
• Trump threatened to bring ‘death, fire and fury’ down on Iran if it were to cut off the passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz
• Iranian security chief Ali Larijani warned Donald Trump to ‘be careful not to be eliminated’
• Oil prices dipped following Trump’s announcement as the President indicated he will waive some sanctions on oil due to market turmoil
• Iran’s Revolutionary Guard forces said Tehran will not allow the export of oil from the region to US and Israeli allies as long as the war continues
• An Iranian drone attack has forced one of the world’s largest refineries in the UAE to shut as a ‘precaution’
• Britain is preparing to send a second ship, RFA Lyme Bay, to the Mediterranean to potentially help with evacuations from the Middle East
• Pakistan has deployed its navy to escort tankers through the Gulf amid increasing threats between the US and Iran surrounding the Strait of Hormuz
• Australia has granted asylum to some of Iran’s visiting women’s football team over fears they faced persecution at home for not singing the national anthem before a match.
• Turkey said a US-made Patriot missile defence system would be deployed a day after NATO shot down a second ballistic missile fired from Iran

Stick with us throughout the day as we bring you the latest developments.

More explosions have just been heard in Tehran in the last few moments.

BBC and Agence France-Presse reporters have both claimed the Iranian capital is currently under fire.

It comes as US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth promised the ‘most intense day’ of strikes on the Middle Eastern country.

The HMS Dragon today became the first British ship deployed to the Mediterranean since the start of the war – but is it worth the wait?

The vessel – one of the Royal Navy’s six Type 45 Destroyers – is capable of firing eight missiles in less than 10 second, the BBC reports.

The weapons are launched at four times the speed of sound.

It boasts a crew of around 200 sailors and is said to be able to protect an area around five times the size of Cyprus, according to the MoD.

The HMS Dragon finally left Portsmouth this afternoon amid days of speculation over when it would begin its long-awaited voyage.

The vessel is headed to Cyprus and becomes the first ship the UK has deployed to the area since the start of the war.

It comes more than a week after an RAF base on the island was struck prompting fears over future attacks on British interests.

See the start of this momentous voyage:

The Government is currently busy working on a plan to assist shipping through the Strait of Hormuz amid the ongoing oil crisis, a spokesman for Sir Keir Starmer said this afternoon.

Downing Street’s aim is ‘to mitigate threats to UK shipping, wherever possible’ amid fears over rising prices.

After France sent ships in an ambitious bid to settle the situation last night, the UK said its ‘priority remains de-escalation and a return to diplomacy’.

Three US B-1 bombers were this afternoon pictured taking off from RAF Fairford in the south-west of England.

It is not clear yet whether any US bombers passing through the UK have been involved in any missions in Iran yet, with neither the MoD or the Pentagon in the US confirming this.

More than 19,000 civilian ‘units’ in Iran have been hit since the war began, according to the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society.

Over 16,000 of these are believed to be residential and more than 3,000 commercial, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency added.

Among these, 69 schools have been damaged in strikes as well as 77 pharmaceutical and medical centres.

It comes after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said he would be looking into civilian casualties in the war.

Rising oil prices could wipe out much of the economic boost Americans were expected to receive from President Donald Trump’s flagship tax cuts.

Wall Street analysts say the surge in energy costs following the war with Iran could effectively cancel out the bigger tax refunds coming because of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

According to financial advisers Raymond James, if oil prices remain around $20 a barrel higher than they were before the conflict, the extra cost Americans pay for gasoline could erase most of the benefit from the tax cuts.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff has announced that he and his foreign diplomacy sidekick Jared Kushner might be headed to Israel next week, although plans are not finalised.

The visit was delayed due to US frustrations over Israel targeting Iranian oil production centres, he told CNBC.

He then insisted Israel and the US’s goals for the war were the same, despite this recent disagreement.

‘Israel is a one bomb country. One bomb takes them out,’ he added without further explanation.

The United States has proposed another round of Russia-Ukraine talks on ending four years of war next week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Two rounds of trilateral talks failed to reach any breakthrough to end Europe’s worst conflict since WWII, launched by Moscow in 2022.

Zelensky said in an audio message sent to reporters that talks – initially planned for last week in the United Arab Emirates – had been postponed until next week by the United States.

‘This was proposed by the American side, but we’ll see what happens in the Middle East, to be honest,’ Zelensky told journalists, adding that the meeting ‘could be in Switzerland or Turkey.’

The Ukrainian leader had earlier held a telephone call with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan who offered to host the talks, Zelensky’s office announced.

US soldiers stationed at military bases in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain have been targeted in the latest attacks launched by Iran after Pete Hegseth warned Tehran faces the ‘most intense day of strikes’.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are said to have launched missiles towards American troops based at at Al-Dhafra airbase, near Abu Dhabi, and Juffair in Bahrain, according to the Mehr news agency.

Israel’s Ramat David airbase and Haifa’s civilian airport have also been listed in targets in what is described as the 34th wave of attacks against the US and Israel.

It comes as US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned today will see the ‘most intense day of strikes inside Iran’ as he insisted Tehran is ‘badly losing’ the war.

US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said that the Russians told Trump they were not sharing intelligence with Iran.

‘Yesterday, on the call with the president, the Russians said that they have not been sharing,’ Witkoff told CNBC on Tuesday.

‘We can take them at their word, but they did say that. Yesterday morning, independently, Jared [Kushner] and I had a call with [Yuri] Ushakov who reiterated the same.’