US, Israel strike Qom leadership council
• Iran says building housing Assembly of Experts, tasked with electing new supreme leader, was ‘not in use’ • Death toll rises to 787 after Tehran rocked by intense bombing; Tel Aviv hit by retaliatory salvos • Khamenei to be laid to rest in Mashhad • Trump shatters Pehlavi’s ambitions, says ‘someone from within’ should take over Iran • Rubio reveals US invasion triggered by fear of imminent Israeli attack • US president contradicts secretary of state, says he may have ‘forced Israel’s hand’ • US lawmakers outraged after Washington empties embassies, orders citizens to flee Middle East without any official help • Gulf states continue to reel from attacks
WASHINGTON: Explosions tore through Tel Aviv, Tehran, Qom and Beirut on Tuesday, as financial markets around the world tumbled at the prospect of a prolonged disruption to global energy supplies, on the fourth day of the US-Israeli war against Iran.
Israeli and US strikes on Tuesday hit the Assembly of Experts building in Qom, which is tasked with electing Iran’s new supreme leader, local media reported.
Local media showed footage of the building severely damaged in the strikes, but there was no information on any potential casualties.
The Mehr news agency reported that the building was no longer being used for meetings.
Tasnim reported that strikes had already targeted the main headquarters of the Assembly of Experts in Tehran on Monday.
Earlier, Tehran was rocked by several explosions in the early hours of Tuesday, and the Israeli military claimed to have struck “over 10 headquarters belonging to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence”, as well as numerous Quds Force headquarters.
Israel later claimed targeting the headquarters of Iran’s state radio and television broadcaster.
Iran’s Mehr news agency also reported strikes on Mehrabad airport, which handles domestic flights. Residents have jammed highways to flee cities as the bombs have fallen.
Tehran also said Israel and US had attacked its nuclear facility at Natanz, one of the main targets of the previous conflict between the three countries last June.
Iran said its death toll from the attacks had reached 787, citing the Red Crescent.
Meanwhile, the Fars news agency reported that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be laid to rest in the holy city of Mashhad.
Khamenei, who led Iran for 36 years, was originally from Mashhad, where his father is buried at the city’s Imam Reza shrine. No date for the funeral was disclosed
Iranian missiles hit Israel
Overnight, Tel Aviv was also rocked b salvos of falling Iranian missiles. “Search and rescue forces, together with numerous emergency teams, are currently operating at the impact sites in central Israel,” the military said.
“The circumstances of the impact are under review.” Israel’s ambulance service said it was treating three people at the sites who were lightly injured.
Israeli police said there were several impact areas involving munition fragments within the Tel Aviv district.
‘Someone from within’
Dealing a blow to the ambitions of the son of the ousted Shah of Iran, US President Donald Trump said it would be better for someone within Iran, rather than Raza Pahlavi.
“He (Pahlavi) seems like a very nice person. But it seems to me that someone from within might be better” to take over, he said.
The US president said the worst-case scenario would be a new leader like the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“I guess the worst case would be, we do this, and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, right?” he told reporters as he met German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Trump, Rubio differ over invasion
Trump said on Tuesday he ordered US forces to join Israel’s attack on Iran because he believed Iran was about to strike the US.
“I might have forced their (Israel’s) hand… It’s something that had to be done,” he said. The comments appeared to be at odds with an earlier account from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said the US attacked Iran “pre-emptively” after learning that ally Israel was going to strike, which would have meant retaliation against US forces.
“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didnt preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio said earlier.
He also said that Washington was not postured for ground forces in Iran at this moment but, US President Donald Trump has those options. He added that the administration believes that the objective it has set can be achieved without ground forces.
US orders citizens to leave Middle East
Three days into the US-Israeli invasion of Iran, the US State Department urged American nationals in 15 Middle Eastern countries to “depart now” due to “serious safety risks”.
The announcement said that any US citizens in Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE and Yemen should leave.
However, people were advised to utilise commercial means to make their escape, as the US government was not in a position to support their evacuation.
This drew the ire of US lawmakers, who assailed the Trump administration for issuing the order at a time when air travel is severely disrupted, saying it was a sign of lack of proper planning.
“Warnings to citizens to evacuate 3 days into this war, when airspace is closed, is a clear sign of ZERO strategy and planning by the Trump admin,” Democratic Senator Andy Kim said in a post on X.
“Now Americans have limited options to evacuate at an extremely dangerous moment with no government assistance. This administration is failing its citizens,” Kim added.
“So the State Department is forcing everyone to immediately leave the region but is also refusing to help people leave the region,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said in an X post. “Incompetence everywhere,” he added.
US empties embassies after Riyadh attack
The US embassy in Riyadh on Tuesday warned of an imminent attack in the eastern Saudi city of Dhahran, home to much of the kingdom’s energy installations along the Gulf coast. The warning came just hours after the US mission in Riyadh was attacked by two drones that sparked a small fire on the embassy grounds.
The US on Tuesday ordered non-emergency government personnel and their family members to leave the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and Jordan and closed several diplomatic missions across the region as tensions with Iran escalated.
The US Embassy in Kuwait said it would remain closed until further notice, and all regular and emergency consular appointments were cancelled.
Attacks in Gulf states
Drones meanwhile struck a fuel tank in Oman and in the UAE an oil storage zone was hit by falling debris from an intercepted drone, as Iran apparently widened its targets beyond US assets.
In Oman, several drones targeted the port of Duqm on its eastern coast on Tuesday. The attack was the second on the port in three days, with the sultanate hit despite acting as a mediator between Iran and the United States just days prior to the war.
AFP journalists in the Bahraini and Qatari capitals heard more explosions on Tuesday, as Iran carried out a fourth day of attacks in Gulf countries.
The correspondents said they heard several blasts in Manama and air raid sirens sounded, while explosions were also heard in Doha.
Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2026