Donald Trump on Monday appeared to set up Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to take the blame should the president characterize the Iran war as a failure.

During a roundtable on crime prevention in Memphis, the president recounted how he made the decision to launch the strikes on Iran late last month.

“I said, ‘let’s talk.’ We got a problem in the Middle East. We have a country known as Iran that , for 47 years, been just a purveyor of terror, and they’re very close to a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.

The president then explained what he viewed were the options.

“We can keep going and get that 50,000 up to 55 and 60, there’s no end,” Trump said, referring to the military’s goal to recruit 60,000 soldiers, “or we can take a stop and make a little journey into the Middle East and eliminate a big problem.”

“And I think, Pete, you were the first one to speak up,” Trump said. “And you said, ‘let’s do it.’ Because you cannot let them have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump claimed Iran came to him Sunday night asking to negotiate an end to the war, which Tehran denied earlier Monday.

The president’s remark toward Hegseth was laying the groundwork to blame the defense secretary for the unpopular Iran war, according to Trump critics and other political observers.

“Hegseth about to give his next briefing from under the bus,” tweeted “Pod Save America” co-host and former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau.

David Stockman, who has nearly 49,000 followers on X, shared a similar sentiment.

More in Politics

Trump tells white Fox News host that immigrants who should be barred from US don’t have 'your genetics'

NextShark

3.9K

Rahm Emanuel proposes banning all federal employees from betting on prediction markets

Associated Press

839

Obama intel chief angered president at meeting by asking if he'd tolerate Iran having nuclear weapon

Fox News

871

Japanese citizens can apply for US citizenshipameric24 ·

AdAd

“Would you like a Greyhound bus or an 18-wheeler coming your way, Pete?!” he tweeted.

Added Matt Ford, host of “The Good Trouble”: “Well someone is getting thrown under the bus! Remember MAGA Trump says he always hires the best,” he tweeted.

Donald Trump

• Could Trump beat up Elvis Presley? President mocked for bizarre Graceland tour question

• Trump delivers shocking low blow to former official whose wife was killed in terrorist attack

• Why Trump chose CNN over Newsmax: ‘Can you believe it?’

• President Donald Trump signs executive order to preserve Army-Navy game window

• Most Americans fear Trump will make a hugely unpopular decision on Iran war, poll shows

Read the original article on al.com. Add al.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump’s decision to back down from his threat to destroy Iran’s power infrastructure came after US allies and Gulf countries privately warned the president of the dangers of following through with his threat, according to people familiar with the matter.

The US president said Monday he was giving Iran a five-day reprieve from his threatened action, pointing to new talks with Tehran he believed could broker a deal that would resolve the conflict.

But Trump’s decision came after some allies cautioned that the war was quickly becoming a disaster. Regional partners told the US that permanent damage to Iranian infrastructure would almost inevitably result in a failed state after the conflict ended, according to the people, who described private conversations on the condition of anonymity.

Pulling back also dovetailed with another interest of the president’s: calming markets rattled by his threats and the ongoing conflict. Trump’s decision, which was announced shortly before US trading began, was designed in part to address those concerns, according to the people, and immediately spurred a sharp fall in Brent crude and a rebound in the S&P 500 and US Treasuries.

“Trump needed some way to climb down from a threat that would surely have started a new round of escalation, this time crossing a new threshold by targeting civilian energy infrastructure, which would likely constitute a war crime,” said Dana Stroul, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. “It is surely no coincidence that the announcement of a five-day pause and talks came right before markets opened in the United States on Monday morning.”

The picture that has emerged is one where Iran’s regional neighbors are, for now, seeing the latest burst of diplomacy as a five-day reprieve. One senior diplomat said Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan are passing messages between the US and Iran. While officials are acting as go-betweens for the two countries, it’s not at all clear the extent to which those negotiations are happening directly.

Trump, speaking on Monday during travel to Tennessee, said representatives from Iran reached out to start the talks because they were eager to make a deal after his threat to strike energy facilities.

“We’ve been negotiating for a long time, and this time, they mean business, and it’s only because of the great job that our military did,” Trump said.

The Trump administration appears to believe that Iran will readily agree to talks if the US signals it’s ready to negotiate, but allies worry that it may not be that easy, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The negotiations between an unnamed Iranian official, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and adviser Steve Witkoff started Saturday and continued through Sunday, Trump said. According to the US president, Tehran agreed to turn over nuclear material in the country and not resume its nuclear program.

The talks were expected to continue by phone on Monday. Asked who would control the pivotal Strait of Hormuz under such a deal, Trump said, “maybe me and the ayatollah — whoever the ayatollah is.”

“We’ll see how that goes, and if it goes well, we’re going to end up with settling this,” Trump said. “Otherwise, we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out.”

More in World

Israeli ambassador to US: ‘We need boots on the ground, but they have got to be Iranian boots’

The Hill

2K

Stammering Bessent Confronted On-Air Over Childish Oil Claim

The Daily Beast

770

BREAKING: Trump Orders Pentagon to Halt Planned Strikes After ‘VERY GOOD’ Talks With Iran

Mediaite

1.5K

The Early registration of the Green Card Lottery has begun!americ24 ·

AdAd

Other nations also acknowledged conversations with the US after he issued his threat. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his government was aware of the talks with Iran.

“I welcome the talks reported between the US and Iran, and to be clear with the committee, we the UK, were aware that that was happening,” Starmer said Monday.

European allies, in particular, have been worried about what a prolonged conflict in Iran could mean for resources and attention for the war in Ukraine, which has stretched past the four-year mark.

Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, spoke with Trump on Sunday while Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif held talks with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday, the Financial Times reported.

Still, Iran’s foreign ministry denied any US-Iran talks to the state-run Mizan News Agency, and Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, on Monday said in a social media post that the US president’s claims were fake news “used to manipulate the financial and oil markets.”

The president’s decision to halt his planned strikes on energy facilities was specifically seen as an effort to manage oil prices by people familiar with the proceeding diplomatic talks, and Trump on Monday acknowledged the link.

“The price of oil will drop like a rock as soon as the deal is done,” Trump said. “I guess it already is today. So we have a very serious chance of making a deal.”

And that mixing of motives has fanned questions across Washington and Wall Street about the actual prospects for peace. Trump’s well-established history of backing off maximalist threats, Iran’s own record of stringing along nuclear talks, and recent examples of the US using discussions with Tehran as a feint ahead of fresh military action all have diplomats and traders questioning whether the negotiations are likely to yield a real deal.

“The President also has shown a penchant for misdirection, and we cannot rule out the possibility that his 48-hour deadline might provide cover for some near-term event that could change the facts on the ground,” said Clearview Energy Partners LLC in an analyst note.

Also concerning was Iran’s immediate bid to deny that any such talks took place, while claiming victory.

“He retreated after hearing that our targets would be all power plants in West Asia,” Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing an anonymous Iranian source. Crude pared about half its initial losses after the Fars report, with some traders skeptical about the accuracy of Trump’s statement.

Trump’s emphatic insistence there are direct communications was met with caution by many US allies who adopted a wait-and-see approach and remained skeptical of this latest salvo given the US leader’s multiple reversals during the three-week conflict.

Trump conceded that the talks had not been with Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who was appointed supreme leader after his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed in the strikes. Trump said the US had not heard from the new leader directly — and was not sure if he was still alive — but believed based on intelligence that Witkoff and Kushner were dealing with the true power center in Iran.

Still, there’s a risk that the pause could end up validating Iran’s approach, particularly if the talks don’t succeed.

“This risks confirming, in Tehran’s mind, that if it threatens back especially against energy infrastructure in the region, it can compel the US to back down,” Jonathan Panikoff, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East at the US National Intelligence Council. “In its mind, Iran is not only winning but this is the type of action that increases its own deterrence.”

At the same time, Trump has not said whether he would hold back on strikes on military sites in the country during the five-day reprieve. Israel is not seeing an imminent end to the war, and plans to continue operations while avoiding energy assets, according to an Israeli official, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters.

Israel was told about Trump’s social media post ahead of time, two officials said, and its army said it was striking the heart of Iran’s capital, Tehran, within an hour of the announcement. So it’s not clear that the decision is the beginning of a process to end to the war. An Israeli military spokesperson said the war isn’t on pause, and fighting is ongoing.

Trump, for his part, acknowledged speaking to the Israelis about the negotiations but predicted they would be on board with an eventual deal.

“I think Israel will be very happy with what we have,” Trump said. “We just spoke to Israel a little while ago. I think they’ll be very happy. This will be peace for Israel — long-term peace, guaranteed peace, if this happens.”

Various Middle Eastern countries, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Oman, have been involved in backchannel talks with Iran in the past two weeks to try to contain the war and, ideally for them, get the Islamic Republic and the US-Israeli coalition to agree to a truce.

“It’s great for the other Middle Eastern countries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, all of them Kuwait and Bahrain in particular,” Trump said of his efforts.

In the days leading up to Trump’s announcement, the most active backchannels to Iran were those convened by Turkey and Oman, according to a senior diplomat posted in the region, while messages were also traveling through Riyadh, New Delhi and Cairo, according to another. But it’s not clear what impact those discussions had on Trump’s decision.

At the same time, officials from multiple Gulf countries, which have been at pains to stay out of the war, have hardened their stances against Iran following weeks of bombardment from Tehran. Saudi Arabia told the US it was ready to strike Iran if its own power and water plants were targeted by the Islamic Republic, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The United Arab Emirates has been among the most vocal, with multiple officials saying it will defend itself against Iranian aggression and a top adviser to the Emirati president saying Iran had driven them closer to Israel and the US.

Trump’s decision illustrated the scattered approach he’s taken to the war. It came after three days in which he sent thousands of Marines to the region and talked about potential ground operations; floated the idea that the war was “winding down”; suggested he would leave it to others to reopen the strait; and then issued the 48-hour ultimatum.

—With assistance from Ethan Bronner, Jasmina Kuzmanovic, Donato Paolo Mancini, Selcan Hacaoglu, Arne Delfs, Peter Martin, Derek Wallbank, Catherine Lucey and Laura Davison.

(Updates with additional details in the 9th and 15th paragraphs.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

NEED TO KNOW

• A judge concluded that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Pentagon violated the First and Fifth Amendments by limiting access for journalists who were unwilling to be “spoon-fed by Department leadership”

• Now, journalists who surrendered their Pentagon press passes and offices in protest last fall over the Defense Department's restrictive policies are demanding their access be restored

• The decision comes as President Donald Trump’s administration is waging a war against Iran, threatening conflict with Cuba, and is engaged in military operations across the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America

Journalists who report on the Pentagon are pushing to have their press access restored after a federal judge ruled last week that the Defense Department’s restrictive media policy violated the First and Fifth Amendments.

In a 40-page ruling on Friday, March 20, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman determined that the Pentagon unconstitutionally discriminated against reporters who were unwilling to be “spoon-fed by Department leadership.”

“The Court recognizes that national security must be protected, the security of our troops must be protected, and war plans must be protected,” wrote Friedman, a Clinton appointee. “But especially in light of the country’s recent incursion into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing."

He said that in this tense moment for international affairs, robust press coverage of the Pentagon is particularly important "so that the public can support government policies, if it wants to support them; protest, if it wants to protest; and decide based on full, complete, and open information who they are going to vote for in the next election.”

Friedman's decision came in a lawsuit brought by The New York Times, one of the many outlets who opted to surrender their Pentagon access in October in order to maintain editorial independence.

The lawsuit unfolded at a time when President Donald Trump’s administration is waging a war against Iran, threatening conflict with Cuba, pursuing a federal trial for captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and is engaged in military operations across the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The president has also threatened Greenland, Canada and Mexico with military action in the 14 months since he returned to the White House.

On Friday, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell wrote on X that the Defense Department — which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump have dubbed the Department of War — disagreed “with the decision and are pursuing an immediate appeal.”

Many reporters dedicated to covering the U.S. military and its leaders at the Pentagon surrendered their press credentials and staged a walkout last October after Hegseth's Department of Defense implemented a new policy requiring journalists to agree to only publish information from Pentagon-sanctioned statements.

All but one outlet that regularly covered the Pentagon rejected those requirements at the time, including administration-aligned Fox News and Newsmax. In their place, the Pentagon invited in several far-right outlets, activists and other friendly media figures to fill out the new press room — including conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer and former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.

Hegseth's Pentagon also reportedly banned press photographers from recent briefings on the Iran war after photos of the defense secretary at earlier briefings were deemed to be “unflattering,” an allegation the Pentagon vehemently denied.

Now, after The New York Times secured a favorable ruling from Friedman — ordering the Pentagon to restore the press passes of the paper’s seven journalists assigned to the beat — an organization representing Defense Department reporters is demanding access be returned to all who forfeited it last fall over the restrictive policies.

“This is a great day for freedom of the press in the United States,” the Pentagon Press Association said in a statement. “We look forward to returning to the Pentagon and providing the public, including the members of the military currently involved in conflicts around the war, information about why and how the Defense Department is waging war.”

More in Politics

Trump Goes Out of His Way to Say Hegseth Was ‘The First’ to Advocate Iran War: ‘You Said, Let’s Do It’

Mediaite

Trump Told to Shut His ‘Reckless Mouth’ by Hakeem Jeffries After President Calls Democrats the Nation's ‘Greatest Enemy’

People

5.3K

Trump delivers shocking low blow to former official whose wife was killed in terrorist attack

AL.com

381

ご自宅の適正価格を知ろうLIFULL HOME'S ·

AdAd

The ruling against the Pentagon’s policy comes amid Trump’s ongoing and substantial effort to bring his frequent foils in the media to heel. The president and his allies have cheered on and helped facilitate the remaking of CBS News and the ongoing purchase of CNN’s parent company Warner Bros. by Paramount Skydance and its sympathetic CEO David Ellison.

"The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” Hegseth said of CNN at a press briefing earlier this month.

Multiple major media companies have settled multimillion-dollar lawsuits brought by Trump, including the parent companies of CBS News and ABC News. He is still suing the Times, the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Des Moines Register and CNN. His Justice Department is prosecuting Don Lemon, and the FBI raided the home of Washington Post journalist Hanna Natanson in January.

And, amid Trump’s mass deportation push, his administration deported a journalist who spent nearly two decades reporting in Atlanta and detained a Nashville Spanish-language journalist who had been reporting on ICE actions. The latter reporter, Nashville Noticias’ Estefany Rodríguez, was released last week after two weeks in custody.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The president has also attempted to ban reporters from outlets he dislikes from the White House or Air Force One and frequently insults journalists, particularly women, when asked questions he doesn’t want to answer.

Last week, Trump demanded on his Truth Social platform that some media outlets should “be brought up on Charges for TREASON” for their coverage of the war with Iran and called on Federal Communications Commission Chair Brandon Carr to investigate and punish the purported offenders, including by stripping networks of their licenses.

“They get Billions of Dollars of FREE American Airwaves, and use it to perpetuate LIES, both in News and almost all of their Shows, including the Late Night Morons, who get gigantic Salaries for horrible Ratings, and never get, as I used to say in The Apprentice, ‘FIRED,’ ” the president wrote. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Read the original article on People

Donald Trump’s White House spokespeople have a favorite two-step reply when reporters ask them to comment on one of the president’s false claims.

First: They say, “President Trump is right.”

Second: They defend some related point that isn’t the one Trump actually made.

Trump’s communications team has returned to this “President Trump is right” template again and again during his second presidency. Even in response to his most clearly inaccurate statements.

In September, for example, PolitiFact asked the White House about Trump’s incorrect declaration that the US had “no inflation.” Spokesperson Kush Desai replied, “President Trump is right: The days of (former President) Joe Biden’s debilitating inflation crisis are over. Since President Trump took office, inflation has been tracking at a low and stable 2.3 percent annualized rate and real wages for American workers are up.”

Trending on Yahoo 100

See full list

Trump discusses shared Strait of Hormuz control with Iran

President Trump publicly raises the idea of the U.S. and Iran managing the crucial Strait of Hormuz together, along with comments about 'regime change' in Iran. These developments signal shifts in how the U.S. is approaching Middle East security and diplomacy.

Powered by Yahoo Scout. Yahoo is using AI to identify stories being covered and generate summaries from articles. This means the info may not always match what's in the article.

Covered by 15 sources

Mediaite

Trump Goes Out of His Way to Say Hegseth Was ‘The First’ to Advocate Iran War: ‘You Said, Let’s Do It’

Notably missing from Desai’s “President Trump is right” reply was any attempt to demonstrate that Trump’s “no inflation” claim was indeed right. In fact, Desai’s assertion that inflation was “a low and stable 2.3 percent annualized rate” contradicted Trump’s assertion that inflation no longer existed.

Since Trump’s second inauguration, the White House has sent reporters similarly unconvincing Trump-is-right replies to questions on subjects as varied as his false claims about how many wars he has settled, his false claims that each US military attack on an alleged drug-trafficking boat saves 25,000 American lives, his false claims that Democrats were last fall trying to secure $1.5 trillion in health care funding for undocumented immigrants, his false claims that Biden allowed South Korea to stop paying some of the cost of the US military presence there, and his false claims that he is reducing prescription drug prices by a mathematically impossible 1,000% or more.

The White House did it again last week about the war with Iran.

CNN inquired about Trump’s claim on social media that media outlets worked “in close coordination” with Iran to spread fake videos showing a US aircraft carrier on fire and should be charged with “TREASON.” Asked which outlets disseminated these videos, spokesperson Anna Kelly’s reply began, “President Trump is right – global news outlets quickly amplified the Iranian regime’s false claims about the USS Lincoln.” The three examples Kelly provided as supposed proof, though, were all to foreign news outlets – one Israeli, one Saudi and one Turkish – that quoted Iran’s baseless claims to have struck the Lincoln; these outlets couldn’t possibly have committed “TREASON” against the US, since they don’t owe allegiance to the US, and none of the examples included fake videos.

A highly unusual White House tactic

Declaring that the president is right about things he is very obviously not right about would be a highly unusual communications tactic from any other White House, including Trump’s own first administration.

More in Politics

‘Let’s do it’: Trump says this top official encouraged start of Iran war

NJ.com

109

Treasury Secretary's Defense For Iran War Plans Sounds Straight Out Of '1984'

HuffPost

100

Trump Mocks Biden And Obama For How They Walk — And It Reveals More Than He Realizes

HuffPost

530

オムロンはGEMBA DX企業へ中期ロードマップで描く成長戦略​オムロン on 日経ビジネス電子版 Special ·

AdAd

Each White House communications team tries to put the best possible spin on the falsehoods of the president it is serving. Under Biden, though, aides tended to demand anonymity to address the falsehoods, then claim Biden had merely misspoken, that the inaccuracy in question was unimportant, or that there was broader context worth considering. They wouldn’t make an on-the-record declaration that Biden was correct when he was transparently incorrect.

Trump’s communications aides during his first presidency, meanwhile, tended to simply ignore media inquiries about Trump lies they knew they couldn’t convincingly defend.

So why do his second-term aides habitually put their names on “President Trump is right” quotes when he plainly isn’t right? When we asked the White House for an explanation in early March, Desai replied, “President Trump has been right about everything, and CNN struggles to accept this. Sad!”

Funny. But we have more plausible theories.

Trump’s second-term administration is staffed with loyalists who are willing to risk their reputations with the mainstream media to go out on shaky limbs for him. Trump demands public praise and devotion. The president’s never-back-down, never-admit-error ethos permeates this White House. And since the president has himself publicly declared as recently as January that “Trump is right about everything,” the people around him don’t exactly feel free to concede he was wrong about even the most obscure of subjects.

“They know he expects a robust PR team that does nothing but praise him,” said Stephanie Grisham, who served as Trump’s White House communications director and press secretary in 2019 and 2020 before becoming a sharp critic of him.

During Trump’s first term, Grisham said, most communications aides “were terrified to reply” to a request for comment “unless they knew for certain he would be OK with it,” knowing “there was hell to pay” if he came across a quote that didn’t land the way he wanted. The second-term team, she said, seems to have learned the lesson “that if you’re going to reply, it better be a full-throated defense of him that always says he was right.”

“Much easier to go in the Oval Office and defend that and blame the media for twisting it,” she said.

Multiple ‘President Trump is right’ comments in 2026 alone

So “President Trump is right” it is. The White House has sent out multiple such comments in the first three months of 2026 alone.

In January, Trump twice promoted a social media video that made a bogus claim that Walmart was closing 250-plus stores in California (it wasn’t) because the Democratic-run state adopted a minimum wage of $22 per hour (it’s $16.90 per hour). When the Agence France-Presse news agency asked the White House for comment, Desai began his reply, “President Trump is right.” Then, instead of providing even a shred of evidence that the Trump-promoted claim about Walmart was indeed right, Desai pivoted to a broader claim that California Democrats had driven many residents and businesses out of the state.

In early February, CNN asked the White House for any corroboration for Trump’s claims that Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell had declared that his police force would have lost control of the city, and the city would not have been able to hold the 2028 Summer Olympics, if Trump had not mobilized the National Guard and Marines amid immigration protests in 2025.

Spokesperson Abigail Jackson’s reply began: “President Trump is right: without the Trump Administration’s efforts in Los Angeles, the city would’ve been overtaken by violent rioters who would’ve continued to wreak havoc.”

Predictably, she included no evidence that Trump was right to say that McDonnell had ever said those things.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

Here are the latest developments in the Middle East war:

- Iran fires barrage at Israel -

Iranian state media announced a fresh salvo of missiles was headed towards Israel on Tuesday morning, after an earlier barrage hit a building in the north.

"Iran fires new wave of missiles at occupied territories", the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) posted on Telegram, before claiming the projectiles had passed through Israel's missile defences.

Following earlier rounds of fire on Tuesday, Israel's military sent search and rescue teams to a building damaged in a strike, and a loud blast rang out over Jerusalem.

- Iraq armed group says commander, fighters killed -

A strike in western Iraq on Tuesday killed Saad Dawai al-Baiji, provincial commander and head of operations in Anbar for the former paramilitary coalition Hashed al-Shaabi, also known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF).

Several Hashed al-Shaabi fighters were also killed, a source from the group told AFP, and accused US forces of carrying out the attack.

- Syrian base targeted -

Syria's army said Monday that one of its bases in the northeast was targeted by a missile strike from neighbouring Iraq, while an Iraqi official said a local armed group was behind the attack.

The Iraqi official, requesting anonymity, told AFP that "an Iraqi faction fired seven Arash-4 rockets, an improved version of the Grad rocket, towards a base in the Hassakeh region".

- Trump-Netanyahu call -

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he had spoken with Donald Trump and that the US president believed the countries' military gains in Iran could be converted into a negotiated agreement that protected Israel's interests.

"President Trump believes there is a chance to leverage the tremendous achievements of the (Israeli military) and the US military in order to realise the war's objectives in an agreement -- an agreement that will safeguard our vital interests," Netanyahu said in a video statement.

Earlier, Trump announced he had shelved plans to attack Iran's power plants in a stunning about-turn, sparked by what he said were "very good" talks with unidentified Iranian officials to bring an end to the war.

- Israel strikes Beirut suburbs -

Israel attacked the Lebanese capital's southern suburbs hours after the Israeli army issued a warning for residents of the area to evacuate, saying it was "striking Hezbollah infrastructure in Beirut".

AFPTV's live broadcast showed a cloud of smoke over the southern suburbs, which are considered a stronghold of the Iran-backed militant group.

- Pakistani, Iranian leaders speak -

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he had spoken with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on "the grave situation in the Gulf region", and promised that Pakistan was committed to playing "a constructive role in advancing peace".

- Israeli interceptor system malfunctions -

A malfunction in Israel's "David's Sling" aerial interceptor system had allowed two Iranian ballistic missiles to strike the south of the country, wounding dozens of people over the weekend, the military confirmed.

The system is a key component of Israel's multi-layered air defence shield.

- Israel strikes Guards' site -

The Israeli military said it struck a site in Tehran belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and used for directing battalions of the Basij paramilitary force.

The hit came days after Israel announced it had "eliminated" the intelligence chief of the Basij in a strike that also killed the force's top commander, Gholamreza Soleimani.

Israel has been targeting the Basij force as part of efforts to undermine the Iranian authorities' grip on power.

- 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.

burs-mlm/hol/lb