Israel airstrike hits Iranian leader Ali Larijani who taunted Trump on streets of Tehran last week: Live updates

Israeli media are reporting the IDF has launched an assassination attempt on Iranian security chief Ali Larijani.

According to media reports, the IDF is investigating whether Larijani was killed following an attack.

It comes four days after he marched alongside thousands of Iranians at a Quds Day rally in Tehran where he criticised Trump during a live interview.

Larijani, the strongman head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, continued his threats with a stream of invective on X aimed at President Trump.

‘Trump says he is looking for a speedy victory. While starting a war is easy, it cannot be won with a few tweets. We will not relent until making you sorry for this grave miscalculation,’ he wrote.

Loud explosions shook Tehran overnight following new Israeli strikes in the Iranian capital.

Blasts were heard in Tehran after a night of heavy bombardment mixed with thunder and rain.

It was not immediate clear what the targets were, but Israel’s army said earlier it had launched a wave of strikes ‘against Iranian terror regime infrastructure across Tehran’, as well as strikes in Lebanon.

Sources have since said the strikes have targeted Ali Larijani, Iran’s security chief. It is unclear whether he was killed in the overnight attack.

Oil prices surged more than 5% today as several countries pushed back against Donald Trump’s demand that they help secure the key Strait of Hormuz.

Investors are awaiting a slew of central bank decisions this week that analysts say could see a resumption of interest rate hikes aimed at offsetting a possible spike in inflation caused by the surge in crude prices.

Australia said today it had lifted borrowing costs because of ‘sharply higher fuel prices’.

Trump has called for allies in Europe and elsewhere to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed, saying at the weekend that securing the waterway ‘should have always been a team effort, and now it will be’.

But there was only a lukewarm response, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz saying the war started by US-Israeli strikes on Iran was ‘not a matter for NATO’, while Britain, Spain, Poland, Greece and Sweden all distanced themselves from the calls. Australia and Japan also opted not to join.

Iranian leaders marched through Tehran on Friday at an annual anti-Israeli Quds Day rally, where they publicly taunted the US and Israel as an IDF missile exploded nearby.

Amongst those in attendance was national security chief Ali Larijani, who dismissed the latest Israeli-US attacks on the capital as being ‘out of desperation’.

‘These attacks are out of fear, out of desperation. One who is strong wouldn’t bomb demonstrations at all. It’s clear that it has failed,’ Ali Larijani told state TV.

Striking a defiant tone, he said US President Donald Trump ‘doesn’t understand that the Iranian people are a brave nation, a strong nation, a determined nation. The more he presses, the stronger the nation’s determination will become.’

Larijani added Trump would be ‘sorry’ for his ‘grave miscalculation’ after the President declared the US had won the war.

The attendance by Larijani was one of the most high-profile public appearances by an Iranian official since the February 28 strike that killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials.

Ali Larijani yesterday accused Gulf nations of abandoning Iran in its war with the US and Israel as he warned them ‘America is not loyal and Israel is your enemy’.

In a statement addressed to governments of Islamic countries, Larijani blasted the response of Iran’s neighbours since the conflict broke out on February 28.

‘Is the position of some Islamic governments not in contradiction with the words of the Prophet of Islam who said: ‘Whoever hears the cry for help of a Muslim and does not respond is not a Muslim?’ he said.

In an apparent sideswipe at the UAE, Larijani said some countries had described Iran as an enemy because American bases had come under attack on its soil

‘Is Iran expected to sit idly by while American bases in your countries are used to attack it?’ These are weak excuses,’ Larijani said.

Urging Muslim countries to unite, he added: ‘You know that America is not loyal and that Israel is your enemy.’

Israel targeted Ali Larijani in an airstrike in Iran overnight, according to Israeli officials.

It remains unclear if Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, was killed or injured in the strike.

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir appears to confirm the details in remarks reported by the Times of Israel.

Zamir says that ‘significant elimination achievements were also recorded overnight, with the potential to impact the campaign’s achievements and the IDF’s missions’ — in an apparent reference to the attempted assassination of Larijani.

On the 14th day of the war Ali Larijani, the brutal Iranian regime’s security chief, sought to taunt Donald Trump from the streets of Tehran.

Larijani, 67, joined an annual Quds Day march and, as an explosion rocked Ferdowsi Square, he ranted to a state media TV camera that America would be defeated.

‘The attacks they carry out are out of fear, out of desperation,’ he claimed. ‘Trump’s problem is that he doesn’t understand the Iranian nation is wise and determined.’ Around him chants erupted of ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Death to America.’

Amid such anti-American grandstanding, it may come as surprise to some – including to those chanting around him and his X followers – how closely linked Larijani’s family is to the US, and to Canada and the UK.

Indeed, it may also explain why some in the West had previously seen him as a potentially pragmatic figure the US could deal with in the wake of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s death on the opening day of the war.

Larijani is one of five brothers dubbed the ‘Kennedys of Iran’ who have reached senior roles in the Iranian regime.

He has relatives in Canada and the UK but, perhaps most surprisingly, his daughter has spent the best part of a decade in the US.

An explosion is captured in Baghdad

A drone and rocket attack targeted the US embassy in Baghdad this morning, while a strike killed four people at a house hosting Iranian advisors, security officials said.

The strikes came hours after air defences thwarted a rocket attack at the embassy and a drone sparked a fire at a luxury hotel frequented by foreign diplomats in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.

Iraq was drawn into the Middle East war after having long been a proxy battleground between the United States and Iran, with strikes targeting Iran-backed groups that have claimed daily attacks on US interests in Iraq and across the region.

Meanwhile, a strike on a house in Baghdad killed four people early Tuesday, with initial reports suggesting that two of the dead were ‘Iranian advisors’ to Tehran-backed groups, a security source told AFP.

Another source from an Iran-backed faction confirmed that four people were killed in the strike on a house hosting Iranian advisors in al-Jadiriyah neighbourhood.

The attacks came shortly after the powerful Tehran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah group announced that its senior security commander Abu Ali al-Askari had been killed, without providing details on the circumstances of his death.

Firefighters extinguish a fire following an Israeli airstrike in Beirut

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the US-Israel war with Iran as the conflict enters its 18th day.

Here’s the main developments so far:

• The US embassy has been attacked with drones and rockets in the Iraqi capital Baghdad
• Oil prices jumped more than 5% today after countries pushed back against Donald Trump’s demand to help secure the Strait of Hormuz
• A major UAE oil terminal was attacked in a new drone strike causing a fire after the complex was hit on Monday
• An ‘unknown projectile’ struck a tanker off the coast of Oman, a UK maritime agency said Tuesday, noting there were no reported injuries and only ‘minor structural damage’
• Israel’s army said Tuesday it had launched a “wide scale wave of strikes” in the Iranian capital Tehran and started striking Hezbollah targets in the Lebanese capital Beirut

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