More nations were drawn into the widening war in the Middle East yesterday, as a US submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka and Nato air defences intercepted a missile fired from Iran toward Turkish airspace.

Gulf states are on the front line of the Middle East’s newest war, and they are not happy.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez yesterday hit back at US President Donald Trump’s criticisms of Madrid’s refusal to let US planes use its bases to attack Iran.

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he ordered US forces to join Israel’s attack on Iran because he believed Iran was about to strike first, contradicting the rationale offered a day earlier by his secretary of state for how the war began.

Iranians were due to bid farewell to late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a ceremony in Tehran later yesterday, a senior Iranian official told state media.

The Trump administration plans to meet with executives from the biggest US defense contractors at the White House on Friday to discuss accelerating weapons production, as the Pentagon works to replenish supplies after strikes on Iran and several other recent military efforts, five people familiar with the plan told Reuters.

61 remain missing

Confusion over casualties after attack on Iranian ship near Galle

Sanchez was responding after US President Donald Trump threatenedtocut trade with Madrid over its position on the conflict.

Real-time data was encrypted and transmitted back to servers in Tel Aviv and southern Israel, the report says

Here are the latest developments as the Middle East war continued into its fifth day

West Texas Intermediate was up 0.5 percent at $74.92. Brent North Sea Crude was not yet being traded

The Israeli military said it struck "dozens" of Iranian security command centres on Wednesday, hitting sites across the capital Tehran

Sushila Karki, the interim prime minister, has urged people to vote "without any fear"

The Pentagon said four ranged in age from 20 to 42 and served in the 103rd Sustainment Command from Des Moines, Iowa, part of the Army's global logistics and supply operation.

The airstrikes have killed hundreds of Iranians since Saturday while Israeli and US leaders have voiced hopes they would trigger an uprising

The Home Office said there had been a surge in asylum applications by students from those countries, and almost 135,000 asylum seekers in total had entered the UK using legal routes since 2021.

Khamenei, who led the country for 36 years, was killed at 86 during a wave of US-Israeli attacks on Saturday

With global energy prices on the rise, President Donald Trump said the US Navy was ready to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, the vital chokepoint into the Gulf that Iran has threatened to seal off

Lutnick, a billionaire former New York financier, has faced pressure over his associations with the now-deceased Epstein, especially after publicly released files undercut his claims of when he had severed ties with him