Iran launches fresh wave of missiles at Israel, U.S. Republicans block measure to halt U.S. air campaign

Iran launched a wave of missiles at Israel early on Thursday, sending millions of residents into bomb shelters as the U.S.-Israel war with Iran entered its sixth day and just hours after moves to halt the U.S. air assault were blocked in Washington.

Meanwhile, Republican senators in Washington voted against a motion aimed at stopping the air campaign and requiring that military action be authorised by Congress, leaving President Donald Trump's power to direct the war largely unbound, as the conflict continues to widen across the Middle East and beyond.

The U.S. Senate voted 53 to 47 not to advance the resolution, largely along party ‌lines, with all but one Republican voting against the procedural motion and all but one Democrat supporting it.

War widens

The U.S.–Iran war has widened sharply, with a U.S. submarine sinking an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka on Wednesday, killing at least 80 people, and NATO air defences destroying an Iranian ballistic missile fired towards Turkey.

• Iranian sailors recovering in Sri Lankan hospital after U.S. submarine attack
• U.S. submarine sinks Iranian warship: Latest on Middle East conflict on Wednesday

The escalation came as the powerful son of Iran's slain supreme leader emerged as a frontrunner to succeed him, suggesting Tehran was not about to buckle to pressure from the United States and Israel's military campaign that has killed hundreds and convulsed global markets.

The missile incident is the first time that Türkiye – which borders Iran and has NATO's second-largest military – has been drawn into the conflict, but U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said there was no sense that it would trigger the Atlantic alliance's collective-defence clause.

Strait of Hormuz

The war continued to paralyse shipping through the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, choking off vital Middle East oil and gas flows. Trump has pledged to provide insurance and naval escorts for ships to contain soaring costs, with oil prices rising on Thursday. At least 200 vessels remain anchored off the coast, according to Reuters estimates.

The U.S. Navy said it will escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz "as soon as it can" but is focused on the conflict for now, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Fox News on Wednesday.

"No, not yet ... We'll do that as soon as we can. Right now, our Navy, and of course, our military, is focused on other things, which is disarming this Iranian regime," Wright said, when asked if any commercial vessels had requested U.S. Navy assistance in the Gulf.

• Turkish vessels on high alert after Iran issues warnings on Strait of Hormuz
• Marine ship insurers cancel war risk cover due to Iran conflict
• Azerbaijan ships 4,500 tonnes of diesel fuel to Armenia in new delivery

Shares rallied

Asian shares rallied on Thursday after days of sharp losses, while U.S. stocks closed up on Wednesday on hopes that the war might end soon. Some traders said the improved sentiment followed a New York Times report that Iranian intelligence had reached out to the CIA early in the war about a path towards ending it.

A source from the Iranian intelligence ministry rejected the article as "absolute lies and psychological warfare in the midst of war", Iran's semi-official news agency Tasnim reported.

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Repatriation flights

Repatriation flights departed the Middle East on Wednesday as governments rushed to bring home tens of thousands of citizens stranded by the war.

Commercial air traffic remained largely absent across much of the region, with major Gulf hubs including Dubai, the world's busiest airport for international passengers, affected.

• Thousands of flights cancelled as Gulf hubs shut down over Iran-U.S. conflict

Khamenei's funeral postponed 

Plans were in doubt for a funeral for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, killed by Israeli forces on Saturday in the first assassination of a nation's top ruler by an airstrike.

The body had been expected to lie in state in a vast Tehran mosque from Wednesday evening, but Iran announced that three days of farewell ceremonies had been indefinitely postponed and no funeral date had been announced.

Two Iranian sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Iran's slain supreme leader, was not in Tehran when his father was killed.

Iran said the Assembly of Experts that will select the new leader would announce its decision soon, only the second time it has done so since the Islamic Republic's founding in 1979.

Assembly member Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami told state TV the candidates had already been identified but did not name them.

Israel said it would hunt down whoever was chosen.

Other candidates for supreme leader include Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the Islamic Republic's founder and a champion of the reformist faction sidelined in recent decades.

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