Main developments
The US national counterterrorism chief has resigned in protest at the war with Iran. US army veteran Joe Kent said in his resignation letter to Donald Trump that he “cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people”.
Trump said the US did not need help from Nato, Australia, Japan or South Korea, as the president lashed out at Washington’s traditional partners for not agreeing to join his war against Iran.
Iran confirmed the death of its top security official, Ali Larijani, who was killed by Israeli strikes on Tuesday.
Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government have agreed to resume oil exports to Turkey’s strategic Ceyhan energy hub on the Mediterranean.
Brent crude climbed 3 per cent to trade above $103 as Iran stepped up its attacks on energy infrastructure across the Gulf.
Attacks by Iraqi Shia militias aligned with Tehran continued, with the US embassy in Baghdad targeted by multiple drones and rockets, two security officials said.
US hits Iranian missile sites that ‘posed a risk’ to vessels in Strait of Hormuz
The US military said it had struck Iranian missile sites near the Strait of Hormuz that “posed a risk” to shipping in the waterway, which is a chokepoint for global commodities.
The US Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the region, said in a post on X that its forces “successfully employed multiple 5,000-pound deep penetrator munitions on hardened Iranian missile sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles in these sites posed a risk to international shipping in the strait.”
Iraq and Kurdish authorities agree to resume oil exports to Turkey
Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government have agreed to resume oil exports to Turkey’s strategic Ceyhan energy hub on the Mediterranean.
KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said in a post on X that the decision had been made to allow oil to flow through the Kurdistan pipeline “given the extraordinary circumstances facing the country”.
Iraq’s oil minister said exports would resume on Wednesday.
Baghdad has been seeking to use the pipeline as an alternative route for crude flows disrupted by the Iran conflict and accused Iraq’s Kurdish authorities of refusing to allow crude exports through the pipeline. The KRG rejected the accusation and said Baghdad had failed to address security and economic challenges facing the sector.
Oil production in Iraq has plunged to around 1.5mn barrels a day as the regional war has shut off the Strait of Hormuz. The pipeline previously averaged 450,000 b/d but was shut down for much of the past three years, owing to a dispute between Baghdad and the KRG, and has only intermittently resumed flows.