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The United States military has issued an unusual public safety warning directly to civilians inside Iran, cautioning them to stay away from areas used by the Iranian military to launch drones and ballistic missiles as the conflict in West Asia intensifies. Image Source: CENTCOMFarsi In a statement released on March 8 through its Farsi-language channel , the US Central Command (CENTCOM) accused Iran’s leadership of placing civilians at risk by operating military systems from densely populated urban areas. CENTCOM alleged that Iranian forces have been launching one-way attack drones and ballistic missiles from locations embedded within civilian neighborhoods in cities including Dezful, Isfahan and Shiraz. According to the US military, such locations lose their protected civilian status under international law when they are used for military purposes, potentially making them legitimate targets during armed conflict. “The Iranian regime is deliberately endangering innocent lives,” CENT...

India’s Parliament reconvenes on Monday under the shadow of a widening war in West Asia, with External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar scheduled to brief the Lok Sabha on the fast-evolving war between Iran, Israel, and the United States. According to the revised list of business circulated on Sunday evening, EAM Jaishankar will make an official statement in the Lower House on the situation in West Asia when the second half of the Budget Session begins.  Sansad TV Screengrab of EAM Jaishankar by ANI The announcement comes amid mounting concern in New Delhi over the safety of Indian nationals across the Gulf and wider West Asian region as military strikes and retaliatory missile attacks continue to escalate. The Ministry of External Affairs earlier said the government has already facilitated the return of more than 52,000 Indians between March 1 and March 7 after partial reopening of regional airspace. Commercial and special flights have been operating to bring stranded tr...

Iran’s powerful clerical body responsible for appointing the country’s supreme leader said on Sunday that it has selected a successor to the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, marking a major political turning point as the war involving Iran, Israel and the United States continues to intensify. A member of the Assembly of Experts, the institution constitutionally responsible for selecting and supervising the supreme leader , said the decision had already been made but the identity of the new leader would be revealed later. Image Source: Conflict Radar “The vote to appoint the leader has taken place and the leader has been chosen,” Ahmad Alamolhoda, a member of the Assembly of Experts, told Iran’s Mehr news agency, adding that the name would be formally announced later on Sunday. The development comes days after Khamenei was killed in the opening Israeli strike on Iran on February 28, an event that triggered a rapid succession process inside the Islamic Republic’s political system. Under Iran...

China warned on Sunday that the war involving Iran, Israel and the United States should never have occurred, calling for an immediate halt to military operations as the conflict continued to widen across the Middle East and beyond. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the conflict was dangerous for the region and the wider international order, stressing that the use of force would only deepen instability. “This is a war that should not have happened—it is a war that does no one any good,” Wang said, urging all sides to stop military operations and prevent the crisis from spiralling further. Image Source: Mao Ning on X Warning against attempts to reshape Iran’s political system through force, Wang said efforts to pursue regime change would find little support internationally. He argued that the world cannot return to “the law of the jungle,” adding that armed conflict in the Middle East historically produces new cycles of instability rather than lasting solutions. China’s intervention...

Israel has launched fresh strikes on southern Lebanon, Beirut and an oil storage facility in Tehran as the war between Israel, the United States and Iran continued to widen across the Middle East, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that the next phase of the conflict would bring “many surprises.” Image Via: Mario Nawfal on X The latest Israeli attack targeted an oil storage facility in Iran’s capital, sending towering flames into the night sky in what appeared to be the first known strike on a civilian industrial installation since the war began. Verified video recordings captured and assessed by Associated Press journalists showed massive pillars of fire rising from the site, illuminating the skyline of Tehran, the news agency said.  At the same time, Israeli forces carried out strikes in southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut as fighting with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement intensified along Israel’s northern frontier. Iran responded with new attacks across...

Human Rights Watch has called for a war-crimes investigation into a February 28 strike on a primary school in southern Iran that reportedly killed scores of civilians, including many children, warning that the attack raises serious questions about the conduct of US-Israeli military operations during the expanding Iran war. Representational Image: RybarMena The rights group said the strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in the town of Minab in Hormozgan province shortly before midday, when students and teachers were inside the building. Iranian authorities have blamed a US-Israeli coalition strike for the attack, while neither Washington nor Tel Aviv has formally accepted responsibility. Human Rights Watch said its analysis of videos, photographs and satellite imagery suggests that the school was struck during a broader wave of attacks on an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval compound nearby. Researchers said at least eight structures across the compound appear to have b...

✍️ Written by Saket Suman The eighth day of the Iran war looked like a regional system under stress, trying to prevent a wider collapse even as the military architecture around Iran kept thickening. The stories IndianRepublic.in tracked through the day fit together into a single picture that suggests India has moved into citizen-protection mode with more than 52,000 Indians returning from the Gulf; the U.S. has escalated both force posture and munitions support to Israel; Iran is trying to reopen diplomatic space with neighbours even while denying responsibility in sensitive flashpoints like Nakhchivan; Gulf states are publicly performing resilience under direct spillover; and the war’s information environment is darkening inside Iran itself under a prolonged internet blackout.  RAF F‑35Bs have carried out their first combat shoot‑down for the UK, destroying hostile drones over Jordan; Via: RoyalAirForce From an India lens, the most important ...

India said it is closely monitoring the evolving crisis across West Asia and the Gulf as the widening war between Iran, the United States and Israel continues to disrupt regional stability and aviation networks, with tens of thousands of Indian nationals already returning home amid the escalating conflict. Image Via: Horizon Reports on X In an official update issued on Saturday, the Ministry of External Affairs said the government was “continuously monitoring the evolving situation in West Asia and the Gulf region,” particularly in relation to the welfare of Indian nationals who had been stranded in the region during transit or short visits as the conflict intensified and airspace closures spread across several countries. The government said Indian citizens in the region have been advised to remain in contact with local authorities and follow the guidance issued by Indian diplomatic missions.  According to the ministry, “all Indian nationals in the region are advised to follow the...

✍️ Written by Saket Suman The widening war involving the United States, Israel and Iran  has marched from the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean and  has now begun to unfold within India’s extended strategic neighbourhood. The sinking of an Iranian naval vessel near Sri Lanka, missile exchanges across the Gulf, disruptions to energy flows and airspace closures across major aviation hubs have all brought the conflict closer to India’s economic and security periphery. In moments like these, there is always a temptation for countries to claim the moral high ground or issue strong declaratory positions. But for India, the wiser path may lie in something quieter b u t strategically more consequential. Restraint, Vigilance and the careful use of Multilateral Diplomacy.  So far, New Delhi appears to have largely followed that course. File Photo: EAM Jaishankar India’s response to the crisis has been marked less by rhetoric and more by calibra...