PHOTO: AFP

AGENCIES

The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran spread across the Middle East and beyond yesterday, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah entering the fray and a British air base in Cyprus targeted.

The Israeli military said it began new strikes on Tehran, as AFP reporters in the Iranian capital heard explosions ring out on the third day of the US-Israeli joint assault, and Israeli strikes rocked Lebanon’s capital Beirut.

Gulf monarchies threatened to retaliate as a Saudi oil refinery burned, Qatar halted LNG production, tankers were attacked off Oman, and energy prices soared.

Washington’s senior military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, told reporters that US forces had achieved air superiority over Iran to “allow them to continue the work”.

Meanwhile, black smoke rose from the US embassy complex in Kuwait as Iran pressed on with attacks it launched in retaliation for the US and Israeli campaign that killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Also in Kuwait, a US base and a power station were targeted, while three US F-15e Strike Eagle jets were downed by friendly fire. The pilots and weapons officers survived.

Smoke billows following Israeli bombardment on Beirut’s southern suburbs yesterday.

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