As Mideast conflict widens, US says attacks on Iran will last weeks and
intensify
[March 03, 2026]
By JON GAMBRELL, MELANIE LIDMAN and SAMY MAGDY
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israeli and U.S. airstrikes pounded
Iran in an escalating campaign that U.S. President Donald Trump said
Monday would likely take several weeks. Tehran and its allies retaliated
across the region, striking Israel and a variety of targets inside Gulf
states, including energy facilities in Qatar and the American Embassy in
Saudi Arabia.
The intensity of the attacks, the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the lack of any apparent exit plan set the
stage for a prolonged conflict with far-reaching consequences. Places
deemed safe havens in the Mideast like Dubai have seen incoming fire;
energy prices shot up; and U.S. allies pledged to help stop Iranian
missiles and drones.
Trump said operations are likely to last four to five weeks but that he
was prepared “to go far longer than that.”
As the conflict spiraled, the State Department urged U.S. citizens to
leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries due to safety risks.
“The hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military,” Secretary of
State Marco Rubio told reporters before briefing members of Congress
about the Iran operation.
Trump said the military campaign's objectives are to destroy Iran’s
missile capabilities, wipe out its navy, prevent it from obtaining a
nuclear weapon and ensure that it cannot continue to support allied
groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah, which fired missiles at Israel on
Monday.
Iran has said it has not enriched uranium since June, though it has
maintained its right to do so and says its nuclear program is peaceful.
As several airstrikes hit Iran’s capital, Tehran, the top security
official Ali Larijani vowed on X: “We will not negotiate with the United
States.”
Iran expands attacks across the region
World markets were rattled as the fighting expanded across a region
vital to energy supplies.
Saudi Arabia said early Tuesday that the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh came
under attack from two drones, causing a “limited fire” and minor damage.
On Monday, the U.S. Embassy compound in Kuwait was struck.
Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery also came under attack from
drones, but its defenses downed the aircraft, a military spokesman told
the state-run Saudi Press Agency. The refinery has a capacity of over
half a million barrels of crude oil a day.
The refinery attack "marks a significant escalation, with Gulf energy
infrastructure now squarely in Iran’s sights,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt,
an analyst at the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
After two of its facilities were struck, QatarEnergy said it would stop
producing liquefied natural gas indefinitely, taking one of the world’s
top suppliers off the market. European natural gas prices surged by 40%
in response.
Several ships have been attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow
mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded passes
and where Iran has threatened attacks.
Iran says nuclear site was targeted
Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy
Agency, told reporters that airstrikes targeted the Natanz nuclear
enrichment site Sunday.
“Their justification that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons is
simply a big lie,” he said.
Israel and the U.S. have not acknowledged strikes at the site, which the
U.S. bombed in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran was rebuilding “new
sites, new places” underground for making atomic bombs in an interview
broadcast late Monday on Fox News Channel’s Hannity.
“We had to take the action now and we did,” said Netanyahu, who offered
no evidence to support his claim.
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed limited
activity at two nuclear sites in Iran before the war. Analysts said
Tehran was likely assessing damage from the 2025 U.S. strikes and
possibly salvaging what remained.
The death toll grew on all sides
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said the U.S.-Israeli operation has
killed at least 555 people. In Israel, where several locations were hit
by Iranian missiles, 11 people were killed. Israel’s retaliatory strikes
against Hezbollah killed dozens of people in Lebanon.
The U.S. military announced that two previously unaccounted for American
service members have been confirmed dead, bringing the total to six. All
six were Army soldiers and part of the same logistics unit in Kuwait,
according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly
and spoke on condition of anonymity.
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Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes that struck a building housing
Al-Manar channel studios in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut,
Lebanon, early on Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Three people were reported killed in the United Arab Emirates, and
one each in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Iran’s top diplomat on Monday shared an aerial photo showing rows of
graves that he said were for more than 160 girls killed during a
U.S.-Israeli strike on an elementary school in Minab. “Their bodies
were torn to shreds,” Abbas Araghchi, the country’s foreign
minister, said on X.
In Israel, three young siblings killed by an Iranian strike were
being laid to rest at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem on Monday
night.
The chaos of the conflict became apparent when the U.S. military
said Kuwait had “mistakenly shot down” three American fighter jets
while Iran was attacking it with aircraft, ballistic missiles and
drones. U.S. Central Command said all six pilots ejected safely.
Hezbollah fires on Israel, prompting massive response
Hezbollah said it fired missiles on Israel on Monday, the first time
in more than a year the militant group has claimed an attack. There
were no reports of injuries or damage.
Israel retaliated with strikes on Lebanon. The country's Health
Ministry reported at least 52 people were killed and 154 wounded in
overnight strikes in the Beirut suburbs and southern Lebanon.
An Israeli military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, said Israel
is keeping “all options on the table,” including a potential ground
invasion of Lebanon.
The Israeli military said it launched strikes targeting branches of
al-Qard al-Hasan, a charity operating outside the Lebanese financial
system that Israel says is used to fund Hezbollah's military wing.
Israel also struck a building housing Al-Manar channel studios in
Beirut’s southern suburbs following an evacuation warning, the
channel said. No details on casualties were available.
No end in sight to the US-Israeli campaign
The U.S. military, which has used B-2 stealth bombers to strike
Iran’s ballistic missile facilities, said Monday that it had taken
out 11 Iranian warships. Trump has said the Iranian navy's
headquarters had been “largely destroyed.”
While Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the U.N., said the
conflict would continue “as long as it takes,” Defense Secretary
Pete Hegseth told reporters Monday that the U.S. is not engaged in a
nation-building effort, saying, “This is not Iraq. This is not
endless."
Trump sought to more clearly define the administration's objectives
on Monday following an earlier statement — as the attack was
unfolding Saturday — in which he listed various grievances dating to
Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and urged Iranians to “take over”
their government.
There have been no signs yet of any such uprising.
Trump has also signaled an openness to dialogue with Iran's new
leadership, which could be chosen soon.
Tehran's streets are deserted
Tehran’s streets have been largely deserted with people sheltering
during airstrikes. The paramilitary Basij force, which has played a
central role in crushing recent nationwide protests, set up
checkpoints across the city, witnesses said.
In the northern Iranian city of Babol, a student, speaking
anonymously over concerns of retribution, told the AP that armed
riot police were on the streets Saturday night and into the early
hours of Sunday after the death of Khamenei.
“We don’t know whether to be happy about the elimination of the
criminals who oppress us or to remain silent in the face of the U.S.
and Israel’s war against the country and its interests and the
terror that is taking place,” he said.
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Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel, and Magdy from Cairo.
Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Sally Abou AlJoud in
Beirut, Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, Farnoush Amiri in New York,
Giovanna Dell'Orto in Miami, and Konstantin Toropin, Lisa Mascaro,
Mary Clare Jalonick and Matt Lee in Washington contributed to this
report.
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