Iran war briefing: US reportedly ready to provide support to Kurdish fighters if they enter conflict

The US-Israel war on Iran has entered a sixth day, with US forces reportedly ready to provide air support to Kurdish fighters if they enter the conflict. Kurdish officials told the Associated Press that Kurdish Iranian dissident groups based in northern Iraq were preparing for a potential cross-border military operation in Iran, and the US has asked Iraqi Kurds to support them. Intense waves of airstrikes have hit dozens of military positions, frontier posts and police stations along northern parts of Iran’s border with Iraq in what appears to be preparation by US and Israel for a new front in their war.

Experts predicted that backing armed groups from Iran’s ethnic communities would “open up a hornet’s nest”, aggravating divisions within the diverse country and increasing the risk of a chaotic civil war if the current regime collapses.

Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the assassinated Ali Khamenei, is being heavily tipped to succeed his father as supreme leader of Iran, which would pitch a hardliner into the task of steering the Islamic republic through the most turbulent period in its 48-year history and offer a powerful signal that, for now, it has no intention of changing course.

A torpedo fired by a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off the south coast of Sri Lanka. At least 87 Iranian sailors were killed in the attack on the Iris Dena on Wednesday. The frigate was sailing in international waters as it returned from a naval exercise organised by India in the Bay of Bengal. The torpedo strike prompted questions from former US officials about whether Washington’s aim of eliminating all of Iran’s military breached international law.

Iran launched missiles at Israel early Thursday. Air sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem shortly after the Israeli military said it had begun new strikes in Lebanon targeting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Air traffic appeared to be picking up slightly, even as travel across the region remained heavily disrupted by the widening Iran war. Governments around the world are rushing to organise the return of their citizens from the Middle East. Officials have chartered jets or deployed military aircraft, routing stranded travellers through Oman, Egypt and Saudi Arabia – key exit points where planes could land and take off.

Top US military officials told lawmakers in a closed door briefing on Tuesday that they may not be able to shoot down every Iranian drone being launched against military installations and assets, according to two people familiar with the matter. The officials, led by the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, said Iran has been deploying thousands of one-way attack drones and that they have capacity to take down the vast majority but not all of the barrage.

Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have forced Donald Trump to receive Congress’s permission before continuing the war with Iran. Republicans batted aside concerns from Democrats that the campaign is illegal and risks plunging the United States into a prolonged conflict. The measure would have forced an end to the US air and naval campaign against Iran and require the president to go to Congress before re-entering the war.

The White House pushed back against questions on US involvement in the bombing of an Iranian girls’ school which killed 175 people. The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, did not accept US responsibility for the attack, and noted that the Pentagon is investigating the strike. Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said the US was investigating it.

Hegseth also signaled a possible longer time frame for the conflict than has previously been floated by the administration, saying it could last eight weeks but that the US has the munitions and the equipment to beat Iran in a war of attrition. He declined to set a specific time range, saying the specific duration of the war would depend on how it unfolds. More forces are arriving in the region, including jet fighters and bombers, Hegseth said, and the US “will take all the time we need to make sure that we succeed.”

The impact of the Iran conflict on energy markets will be temporary and a “small price” to pay for US military goals, US energy secretary, Chris Wright, told Fox News. US and Israeli strikes on Iran and the subsequent response by Tehran have widened regional tensions and paralysed shipping through the strait of Hormuz, disrupting vital Middle East oil and gas flows and sending energy prices higher. Donald Trump has pledged to provide insurance and naval escorts for ships exporting energy from the region to contain soaring costs.