Trump demands Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender’ and says US won’t kill supreme leader ‘for now’ – latest updates

Oil prices are at their highest since January as markets respond to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran. US oil futures closed at $74.84 per barrel today, up 4.28% from yesterday.

The crisis had already triggered the largest single-day oil price surge in the last three years.

Here are my colleagues Jillian Ambrose and Lisa O’Carroll with more:

French president Emmanuel Macron called for a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, saying “military strikes” could be “chaos”, Reuters reports.

Speaking on the sidelines of the G7 gathering in Canada, Macron said “we don’t want Iran to get a nuclear weapon” but cautioned that “the biggest error would be to use military strikes to change the regime because it would then be chaos”.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu the “greatest threat to the region’s security” during a phone call with the Emir of Qatar, according to a social media post from the Turkish Presidency.

Erdogan, who has been deeply critical of Netanyahu since the war in Gaza began, also told the Qatari leader that the Israel-Iran conflict “cannot overshadow the humanitarian crisis and genocide in Gaza”.

The Israeli Defence Force struck “deep” within in Iran and killed one of the nation’s lead security figures, according to an IDF spokesperson.

During a press conference this afternoon, spokesperson Effie Defrin said “Israel killed Iran’s wartime chief of general staff Ali Shadmani, who ascended to the position after Israel killed his predecessor last week.

Defrin added, “We have struck deep, hitting Iran’s nuclear, ballistic and command capabilities”.

The State Department has established a task force to assist US citizens and permanent residents trying to leave the Middle East as hostilities continue between Israel and Iran.

A task force operated by the Bureau of Consular Affairs is operating 24 hours a day, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said at a press briefing.

“We continue to monitor the complex and rapidly evolving situation on the ground as we continue to assess and address the needs of US citizens,” she said. The spokesperson declined to share how many Americans had contacted the task force to date, and added that the US was not planning any evacuation flights.

Earlier today, the US embassy in Jerusalem said it is not in a position to “evacuate or directly assist” Americans in departing Israel and that it will be closed on Tuesday.

“Intense” explosions are taking place in Tehran, reports Iranian state news agency IRNA.

Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have called for caution as hostilities between Israel and Iran enter their fifth day, Reuters reports.

In a statement, UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed warned that “uncalculated and reckless steps” could inflame a wider, regional conflict.

Meanwhile, Egyptian foreign minister Badr Abdelatty called for a ceasefire during phone calls with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi.

The United Kingdom has deployed Royal Air Force fighters to the Middle East as the country “seeks to better protect its presence” in Cyprus and Oman “from any threat from Iran”, UK defense secretary John Healey said.

The primary purpose of the military deployment was “to reinforce deescalation in the region, to reinforce security in the region”, Healey said in a statement, adding that “they may also be used to help support our allies”.

Donald Trump is currently meeting with his national security team in the White House Situation Room, CNN reports, citing a White House official.

The meeting comes about an hour after Trump posted on social media that he knew the location of Iran’s supreme leader but had opted not to kill him “for now”.

Iran’s senior army commander has called for residents of Haifa and Tel Aviv to evacuate immediately, Reuters reports, citing the semi-official Iranian news agency Mehr.

Iran has previously struck the two Israeli cities over the course of the five days of fighting that began Friday.

In an apparent response to Donald Trump’s recent social media post, senator Bernie Sanders says the president “must not take illegal military action against Iran.”

“The Constitution of the United States is very clear. There is no ambiguity. It is Congress that determines whether we go to war, not the President,” Sanders wrote on social media.

The Vermont Independent’s statement comes just a day after Democratic senator Tim Kaine introduced a war powers resolution that would prohibit US armed forces from taking direct action against Iran without explicit authorization from Congress or a declaration of war.

In a lengthy post on social media, JD Vance responded to “a lot of crazy stuff” concerning the United States’ involvement in the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict, including fears from longtime members of Donald Trump’s far-right Make America Great Again coalition.

“The president has shown remarkable restraint in keeping our military’s focus on protecting our troops and protecting our citizens,” Vance wrote. “He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president. And of course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy.”

Donald Trump has posted on social media that the United States knows the location of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He added that the US would not kill Khamenei but called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender”.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social.

He followed up with a second post a few minutes later, writing: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

In a post published about thirty minutes earlier, Trump said, “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.”

• US president Donald Trump said he wanted a “real end” to the nuclear problem with Iran, with Iran “giving up entirely” on nuclear weapons, according to comments that were posted by a CBS News reporter on X. Trump made the comments during his midnight departure from Canada, where he attended the Group of Seven nations summit on Monday, the CBS News reporter said early on Tuesday.

• US intelligence assessments have found Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon and would have been up to three years away from being able to deliver one, CNN is reporting. The assessments, sourced to four people familiar with them, are in stark contrast to the narrative being pushed by Israel that Iran was fast approaching a point of no return in acquiring nuclear weapons.

• German chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Tuesday that the leadership in Tehran has been weakened by Israel’s attacks in the past few days and will probably not return to its former strength. “This regime is very weakened and will probably not return to its former strength, making the future of the country uncertain. We will have to wait and see,” Merz said in an interview with broadcaster Welt at the G7 summit in Canada.

• Keir Starmer has rejected the idea that Donald Trump might want to directly involve the US in helping Israel attack Iran, saying that his discussions with the US president at the G7 summit made him convinced Trump genuinely sought peace, pointing to Trump’s decision to also sign a leaders’ statement about the need for de-escalation. Speaking to reporters at the summit in Kananaskis, Canada, Starmer said he was sitting next to Trump at Monday evening’s leaders’ G7 dinner at which the statement was drafted, “so I’ve no doubt, in my mind, the level of agreement there was in relation to the words that were then issued immediately after that”.

• Iran’s ambassador to the UK insisted his country had no intention of building a nuclear weapon as he clashed with MPs on Tuesday. Seyed Ali Mousavi told the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that Iran’s nuclear programme was “only peaceful”, insisting: “There is no desire, not any intention, to produce a nuclear bomb.”

• US forces have pulled out of two more bases in northeastern Syria, visiting Reuters reporters found, accelerating a troop drawdown that the commander of US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces said was allowing a resurgence of Islamic State. Reuters reporters who visited the two bases in the past week found them mostly deserted, both guarded by small contingents of the Syrian Democratic Forces – the Kurdish-led military group that Washington has backed in the fight against Islamic State for a decade.

• Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could face the same fate as Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion and was eventually hanged after a trial. “I warn the Iranian dictator against continuing to commit war crimes and fire missiles at Israeli citizens,” Katz told top Israeli military officials.

• The Israeli military said its forces struck on Tuesday several locations in western Iran, hitting “dozens” of missile launchers as the arch-foes traded fire for a fifth straight day, AFP reports. The Israeli air force “completed a series of strikes in western Iran” in which “a number of sites and dozens of surface-to-surface missile launchers were struck”, a military statement said, hours after announcing “several extensive strikes” overnight on military targets in the Islamic republic’s west.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Tuesday that it believes Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s Natanz enrichment site have had “direct impacts” on the facility’s underground centrifuge halls, the Associated Press (AP) reports. The strikes are part of an air campaign Israel launched against its longtime foe five days ago, targeting Iran’s military and nuclear programme.

• Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they struck a centre of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. In a statement aired on state television, the Guards said they “struck the military intelligence centre of the Zionist regime’s army, Aman, and the Zionist regime’s terrorist operations planning centre, the Mossad, in Tel Aviv”.

• Israel struck dozens of targets linked to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes overnight and has got Iran’s military leadership “on the run”, an Israeli military official said on Tuesday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the Israeli air force had not targeted Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear facility, but said that still might happen, Reuters reported.

• More than 600 people of 17 nationalities have fled into Azerbaijan from Iran in the five days since the start of the air war between Israel and Iran, an Azerbaijani source with knowledge of the situation said on Tuesday. The source said they included citizens of Russia, the United States, Germany, Spain, Italy, Serbia, Romania, Portugal, China, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

• Israel’s El Al Airlines said on Tuesday it had received the government’s permission to start flights to bring back people stranded abroad during the conflict with Iran. The Israeli flag carrier was referring to people who had flights to Israel cancelled when its airspace was closed.

• A Slovak government plane with 73 passengers – mostly Slovaks, but also Poles, Czechs, Austrians, Slovenians and others – landed in Bratislava on Monday before 17:00 GMT after leaving Israel, said Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. Slovakia is sending another plane on Tuesday and then on Wednesday, with both expected to bring back Slovaks and foreigners.

• An image of Iranian state TV presenter Sahar Emami, who was targeted live on air during an Israeli attack, has been displayed on a banner in Veliasr Square in Tehran. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that her image, with her finger raised in defiance, was paired with a verse from the Persian poet Ferdowsi, celebrating the courage of women “on the battlefield”.

• Qatar said on Tuesday its gas production at the South Pars field is steady and supply is proceeding normally, after the world’s largest gas field was struck by Israel on Saturday, prompting Iran to partially suspend its production, Reuters reports.

One of Iran’s largest banks, Bank Sepah, appears to be facing technical problems, with videos and reports suggesting customers have been unable to use its ATMs to withdraw money or use their bank cards.

Sepah, Iran’s first bank, had been sanctioned by the US and UK for providing support for Iran’s Ministry of Defence and armed forces logistics.

An Israel-linked “hacktivist” group, calling itself Predatory Sparrows or Gonjeshke Darande in Farsi, have claimed initial responsibility. Reports from Iranian state-linked Fars News appear to confirm the issues customers were facing, but have not confirmed details of any cyber-attack.

Earlier today, the Iranian Cybersecurity Command prohibited all officials and security teams from using digital devices connected to communication networks, including phones, smart watches, portable computers, and to take necessary precautions. On Sunday, the hacktivist group made a post online claiming to have also hacked into Iranian government servers. It is unclear if these are linked.

As the news of the issues facing Bank Sepah spread on social media, the online forum where the group post often was flooded with messages and discussions celebrating the cyber-attack in Hebrew. The group itself does not claim any state affiliation but claims to hit out at Iran’s supreme leader Khamenei.

In response to reports attributing the cyber-attack on Bank Sepah to Israel, a member posted on the hacking group’s channel: “Why is this claimed as an Israeli attack? It’s Predatory Sparrow.” But the hacker group’s past attacks, due to its sophistication and timing, were linked to the Israeli state by two unnamed US defense officials.

This is not the first time Predatory Sparrow has disrupted Iran’s state-linked infrastructure, affecting Iranian civilians. The hacker group previously orchestrated a serious cyber-attack in 2021 that disabled Iran’s fuel distribution system by disabling sales at more than 4,000 gas stations, taking the country almost two weeks to recover.

It was also responsible for paralysing Iran’s railway system networks, and committing cybersabotage on Iranian steel mills, which caused a fire in the facility. The latter was captured using hacked surveillance cameras with a message from the hackers claiming responsibility.