Day 2: Interim council claims power; US troops die

Israeli strikes expanded into central Tehran, striking near police headquarters and state television facilities. The IDF confirmed 'large-scale strikes' were ongoing. The target set shifted from military and nuclear infrastructure to the capital's administrative core.

The expansion of Israeli strikes from military infrastructure to administrative targets in central Tehran raises the question of whether war aims have broadened beyond the stated objective of degrading Iran's military capability, with direct implications for civilian risk in one of the Middle East's most densely populated cities. Read full version ↓

Iran launched a second wave of missiles and drones targeting Israel, US military installations, and Gulf state territory.

Iran's ability to mount a second wave of missile and drone launches after absorbing simultaneous strikes across five cities suggests either that the degradation operation did not achieve its full objectives or that Iran's missile infrastructure is more dispersed and resilient than assumed. The renewed targeting of Gulf States forces capitals hosting US bases to confront the security costs of those arrangements. Read full version ↓

Six civilians were killed when Iranian missiles struck residential buildings in Beit Shemesh, approximately 30 kilometres west of Jerusalem, according to Israeli emergency services.

Iranian missile strikes reaching residential areas deep inside Israel demonstrate expanding targeting beyond military sites and raise questions about the capacity of layered air defences against sustained salvos. Read full version ↓

Three people were killed and 58 injured in the UAE from Iranian missiles, according to Emirati state media. The UAE hosts major US military facilities but had no role in initiating the strikes.

Iranian strikes killing civilians in a non-belligerent Gulf state expose the lethal cost of hosting American military installations and create pressure on Gulf governments whose populations had no say in the security arrangements that made them targets. Read full version ↓

Pakistani security forces shot dead nine Shia protesters who attempted to storm the US consulate in Karachi, according to Al Jazeera. This is the first lethal conflict spillover into a nuclear-armed state not party to the conflict.

The killing of Pakistani Shia protesters by Pakistani security forces introduces destabilisation risk in a nuclear-armed state with 35 to 46 million Shia citizens and decades of sectarian violence, extending the crisis into South Asia and beyond the US-Israel-Iran triangle. Read full version ↓

Hundreds of protesters attempted to storm the US embassy in Baghdad.

The embassy assault signals that the US-Iran conflict is generating uncontrollable domestic pressure inside Iraq, where 2,500 American troops are stationed and the government depends on Iranian-aligned political factions for its parliamentary majority. Iraq's structural inability to choose between its two patrons is reaching a breaking point. Read full version ↓

Kataib Hezbollah declared it 'will not remain neutral,' the most direct signal yet that Iranian-aligned Iraqi militias are preparing to enter the conflict. The group had threatened retaliation since the opening strikes but had held back.

Kataib Hezbollah's declaration transforms the conflict from a bilateral US-Israel vs Iran air war into a potential multi-front ground campaign. Iraqi militias possess Iranian-supplied ballistic missiles, attack drones, and fifteen years of experience targeting American personnel — capabilities that cannot be neutralised from the air. Read full version ↓

Mohsen Rezai, secretary of Iran's Expediency Council, stated the strait of Hormuz is 'officially open' but that US warships are 'legitimate targets.' The earlier IRGC VHF Channel 16 closure broadcast has not been rescinded. No commercial shipping is currently transiting the strait.

The de facto closure of the strait of Hormuz is the most consequential economic disruption of the conflict. Iran's rhetorical reframing shifts blame to Washington but changes nothing for the tankers sitting idle, the Asian economies dependent on Gulf energy, or an interim Iranian government that needs oil revenue to survive. Read full version ↓

Three US service members were killed and five seriously wounded, CENTCOM confirmed. No details on location or circumstances were released. These are the first US combat deaths of the conflict.

The first American casualties break the administration's framing of a contained, surgical operation, introducing congressional war powers scrutiny and the domestic political gravity that accompanies American dead. Read full version ↓

President Trump posted 'THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT' and pledged force 'never seen before,' threatening to raze Iran's missile production infrastructure and destroy its navy.

The escalatory language widens the gap between the administration's original narrative of limited military action and the expanding reality of the conflict, while performing a domestic political function in the immediate wake of the first US combat deaths. Read full version ↓

Protests were reported in Kashmir in response to the Iran-Israel-US conflict.

Street-level unrest in Kashmir demonstrates the conflict's capacity to destabilise South Asia beyond Pakistan, complicating India's careful diplomatic positioning between Washington and Tehran. Read full version ↓