The military operation against Iran entered its seventh day on Thursday. The United States says it has continued to dominate the Iranian Navy, with over 30 warships destroyed, and Tehran continues to launch strikes against Israel, albeit at a much reduced pace.
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**Friday’s live updates below. All updates in Eastern time**
13:30 PM: Enter the Iranian Conservatives
No, not the ultra-conservative Mullahs. Iranian monarchists in exile have today launched a new political party, the Iranian Conservative Party. They said in a launch statement:
We, a group of loyal sons and daughters of Iran, at this critical juncture in history, with a sense of responsibility and commitment to our beloved country Iran, hereby announce the commencement of activities of the Conservative Party of Iran to the great nation of Iran. Everlasting glory to the Shah and enduring unity of Iran
Assuming there will never be another Ayatollah of any great importance, what the next Iranian state looks like is being widely discussed and the worldwide Iranian diaspora, many of whom want to bring back the Shah (King) want a part in it. The Jerusalem Post reports the party has published a draft constitution for a new Iranian government, which they hope will leave them in a strong position should the government fall.
As earlier reported, Trump’s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff has already held meetings with the Shah-in-exile in the U.S., where he now lives, although what exactly was in those meetings is not known.
The Post quotes a Conservative Party or Iran spokesman who said of the plans: “Since Iran is not yet liberated, formal party registration inside the country is currently impossible… Registering the party abroad would be largely symbolic and legally complicated. The party will therefore be organized in exile with the clear intention of formally registering it inside Iran once political conditions allow.”
13:15 PM: The destruction of Iran’s navy continues
As noted earlier, the U.S. has boasted of its total domination of the Iranian navy. Long considered a potentially potent regional actor, much of this theoretical power was down to fear of the unknown. How effective were those Chinese / Iranian anti-ship missiles, actually? How effective would an Iranian small boat swarm be in a real war situation?
At this stage it seems we will never know. The Iranians tried some real innovation in the maritime space, including converting a former civilian container ship into an ersatz aircraft carrier. Tehran claimed it could support huge numbers of drones, manned helicopters, small boat swarms, and even miniature submarines. The U.S. bombed it yesterday and shared the footage: it doesn’t look pretty. See it here.
11:40 AM: The U.S. needs a role in choosing the next leader of Iran, says Trump
President Trump has an eye on the future and has warned Iran against rushing to pick a new Ayatollah. He said: “We want to be involved in the process of choosing the person who is going to lead Iran into the future, so we don’t have to go back every five years and do this again and again”. Our World Desk’s Frances Martel has a full report on this here.
10:20 AM: Iran is attacking Iraq, again
As previously stated, there has been discussion over whether CIA-armed Kurdish groups might launch a land invasion of Iran once the U.S. and Israel has done the high-pace precision strikes to degrade Tehran’s ability to resist. These questions were then denied by the largest of the Kurdish groups, the Peshmerga in Iraq, with their President stating yesterday: “we will not engage in any conflict or military escalation that jeopardizes the lives and security of our people”.
Iran clearly doesn’t believe it. As stated by The Times of Israel, Iranian drone strikes are hitting Kurdish groups in Northern Iraq, while other strikes are hitting oil facilities and Basra airport.
09:30 AM: Iranian spies arrested
Ten people were arrested across London by Counter Terrorism Police on Friday morning, the Metropolitan Police tell us. Four of them are alleged to have “assisted a foreign intelligence service” and the remaining six are held on suspicion of assisting an offender. Allegedly, the target of their spying efforts were Jewish people in the United Kingdom. Read the full story here.
09:00 AM: Trump wants “unconditional surrender”
The Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian broke cover this morning to claim “some countries have begun mediation efforts” to end the war, casting his nation in a dovish role. The U.S. is evidently unconvinced by such assertions, however, with President Donald Trump waking up America with a Truth Social post this morning stating “there will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER”.
For what comes next, the President stated: “we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE”.
Repeating the rallying call we’ve been saying in anti-Ayatollah and pro-Shah protests in recent days, President Trump added “Make Iran Great Again”.
06:40 AM: Was it all for show?
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez talked a big game earlier in the week, defying NATO ally the United States over the Iran strikes and refusing to allow the use of its bases to make them happen. This has invited a harsh retaliation from Washington, with President Trump threatening a trade embargo on Madrid.
Yet is there more to this than meets the eye? As reported by Christian Caruzo this morning, behind the tough rhetoric there are military flights coming to and from Spanish military bases including “24 takeoffs by military aircraft — some of them on more than one mission — to carry out attacks in Iran, with stopovers in Germany and Italy”.
There’s much more detail in the report you can read here.
06:30 AM: Israel says airstrikes are working
The airstrikes are working and the threat from Iran has been much reduced, so says Israeli Defence Force Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, who has spoken of the joint U.S.-Israeli operation creating air superiority and suppressing Iran’s missile networks. Overnight, strikes took place by U.S. B-2 stealth bombers, which dropped 2,000lb bunker buster bombs on launchers and facilities deep underground.
While the intensity of Iranian attacks are much reduced, with The Times of Israel noting the number of Iranian missile strikes is down 90 per cent and drone strikes down 83 per cent since Saturday, Zamir said “the threat has not yet been removed”. Indeed, more missiles were launched towards Israeli cities on Friday morning, sending locals to their shelters. No injuries have been reported in this morning’s strikes, at the time of publication, but there have been ten fatalities from Iranian missiles in Israel since the commencement of hostilities on Saturday.
The newspaper also cited the remarks of a government source who praised the pace of fighting, reportedly stating the campaign is going “smoothly” and “proceeding much better than expected”.
Iran itself, meanwhile, remained bullish in its rhetoric. The nation’s military boasted of strikes against U.S. military bases in Kuwait on Friday morning, promising they would continue, and said it would bomb Iraq if Kurdish fighters attempted to invade Iran.
For earlier livewire updates from Thursday please click here