(AFP) – Here are the latest developments in the Middle East war on Monday:
– **UK summons Iran envoy**
Britain’s foreign ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador to London, Seyed Ali Mousavi, criticising what it called Tehran’s “reckless and destabilising actions” in the UK and overseas. “The summons follows the recent charging of two individuals, one Iranian national and one British-Iranian dual national, under the National Security Act, on suspicion of providing assistance to a foreign intelligence service,” a Foreign Office spokesperson said.
– **Bahrain blasts**
Several strong explosions and air alert sirens rang out in Bahrain, according to an AFP journalist, the first to be heard in the Gulf since US President Donald Trump claimed talks to end the war with Iran were underway. “Citizens and residents are urged to remain calm and head to the nearest safe place,” Bahrain’s interior ministry said on social media.
– **Iran denies US talks**
“Over the past few days, messages were received through some friendly countries indicating a US request for negotiations aimed at ending the war,” said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei, according to the official IRNA news agency. But he “denied any negotiations or talks with the United States during the past 24 days of the imposed war,” which Trump had claimed were in motion just hours earlier.
– **UK sends Gulf air defences**
Britain is sending short-range air defence systems to the Middle East to counter Iranian missile attacks, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. “We’re deploying short range air defence systems to Bahrain at speed,” Starmer told a parliamentary committee, adding that Britain was “doing the same with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.”
– **’Point of no return’**
The International Committee of the Red Cross demanded a halt to the “war on essential infrastructure” in the Middle East, warning of potential “irreversible consequences” including harm to nuclear facilities. “What we have seen in recent days in the Middle East risks reaching a point of no return,” ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric warned in a statement.
– **Israel kills 1 near Beirut**
An Israeli strike on Hazmieh east of Beirut killed at least one person, Lebanon’s health ministry said, the second strike on the residential Christian area in the ongoing fighting between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. The Israeli military said around the same time that it had “struck an IRGC Quds Force terrorist in Beirut,” referring to the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
– **Targeting Hormuz ‘economic terrorism’**
The chief of the UAE’s state energy company ADNOC slammed Tehran’s effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused a surge in oil prices, as “economic terrorism against every nation.” “No country should be allowed to hold Hormuz hostage,” Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said in virtual remarks to the annual CERAWeek conference in Houston.
– **Trump claims ‘regime change’ in Iran**
Trump claimed “regime change” was effectively underway in Iran, while warning that if talks with Iranian figures contacted by Washington do not succeed then the bombing will continue. Trump made clear the talks — denied by Tehran — were not with Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, but with people he described as “very reasonable,” and said so many top officials had already been killed in the conflict that “there’s automatically a regime change.”
– **Iran must abandon nuclear: Trump**
Trump, however, said that there are “major points of agreement” in his claimed talks with Iran, which he said must give up its nuclear ambitions and enriched uranium stockpile.
– **Israel strikes Lebanon bridge**
The Israeli military struck a bridge linking southern Lebanon with the eastern Bekaa region, state media reported, after warning it would hit the crossing. The strike is part of a series of attacks on bridges over Lebanon’s Litani River, located around 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of Israel, including the key Qasmiyeh bridge on Sunday.
– **Oil disruption ‘temporary’**
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said oil market disruptions are “temporary,” as costs surge on the back of the war.
– **UN Lebanon peacekeeper HQ struck**
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon announced its headquarters in Naqura had been hit by a projectile, probably launched by a “non-state actor,” after Hezbollah declared it had targeted Israeli forces in the same town. Since Saturday, the coastal town in Lebanon’s far south on the border with Israel has been one of the flashpoints between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.
– **War going ‘very well’: Trump**
Trump told AFP that “things are going very well” with Iran, shortly after announcing a five-day pause on targeting the Islamic republic’s power plants.
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© 2024 AFP
