Iran-US war latest: Tehran confirms death of security chief Ali Larijani as Trump slams Nato for abandoning US ‘in time of need’

Donald Trump has resurfaced an old social media post from the now-former counterterrorism chief calling on the US president to “wipe Iran’s ballistic capability out.”

Joe Kent announced his resignation as director of the National Counterterrorism Centre Tuesday, saying, “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”.

Trump shared a post by Kent from early January 2020, where he told the president, “We should not sit and wait for the next attack, wipe Iran’s ballistic capability out and get our troops out of Iraq – they are only targets now.

“No US WIA/KIA is a tribute to the professionalism of our military and intel professionals not Iranian restraint”.

Iran has confirmed the death of top security chief Ali Larijani on Tuesday, state media reported.

Tehran had earlier denied reports that Larijani was dead and a handwritten letter dedicated to Iranian troops was released after Israel claimed he had been killed in an IDF strike.

A tribute to Larijani was posted on his social media account on X, it said: “Indeed, a servant of Allah has joined his Lord as a martyr.”

Lebanon’s Health Ministry has said two Israeli strikes on residential buildings in Beirut early Wednesday morning killed at least six people and injured 24 others, the Associated Press reported.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has said missile attacks that reportedly killed two people in Israel was revenge for the killing of Iran’s top security chief Ali Larijani, the Associated Press reported.

In the paramilitary’s statement reported on by Iranian state TV, it was said that Khorramshahr-4 and Qadr multiple-warhead missiles were used in the strikes near Tel Aviv.

New drone and rocket attacks have been launched against the US Embassy in Baghdad, according to a CNN report.

CNN reported, citing security officials, two rockets targeting the embassy were intercepted.

The strikes caused some damage around the embassy, according to one official.

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said a strike hit the grounds of the Bushehr nuclear power plant on the Persian Gulf Tuesday local time.

The organization said “no financial, technical, or human damage occurred and no part of the plant was harmed”, per the Associated Press.

The United States military said Tuesday that it targeted sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz because Iranian anti-ship missiles posed a risk to international shipping there.

US Central Command said it had “successfully employed multiple 5000-pound deep penetrator munitions on hardened Iranian missile sites” along the coastline near the Strait.

”The Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles in these sites posed a risk to international shipping in the strait,” it wrote in a statement on X.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on Tuesday that it is not realistic to expect controlled regime change in Iran.

“There will be no military solution. And to have a controlled regime change, is, I would say, a hypothetical idea, which is not realistic,” he said, speaking alongside his French counterpart in Berlin at an event hosted by the ZEIT media group.

“So chaos in Iran, as bad as the regime is, is also not in our interest and not in the interest of the region and, of course, in the interest of the people living in Iran.”

Two people have been killed with severe shrapnel injuries in Israel after rocket fire on Tuesday, according to the national ambulance service MDA.

While dozens of top Iranian military and intelligence leaders have been killed in the war, including the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, officials believe that the regime is still clinging onto control.

As the war enters a third week, at least 2,000 people have been killed with no end in sight despite widespread damage to Iran’s military installations and naval capability.

A “multitude” of intelligence reports provide “consistent analysis that the regime is not in danger” of collapse, a source close to US intelligence told The Washington Post. Rather, they said it “retains control of the Iranian public”.