Mena Today

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's son Mojtaba has emerged as frontrunner to succeed his late father as Iran's supreme leader after years spent forging close ties with the elite Revolutionary Guards and building influence in the clerical establishment.

Hezbollah’s decision to enter the Middle East war in support of its patron Iran has opened a rift with its main political ally at home in Lebanon, leaving the group deeply isolated as the country lurches into another devastating conflict with Israel.

Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura, which houses its largest domestic refinery and a key crude export terminal, was targeted by an attempted drone attack on Wednesday, a Saudi defense ministry spokesperson said on X, two days after a drone attack on the complex shut the refinery.

A ballistic missile fired from Iran was intercepted and destroyed by NATO air and missile defense systems in the eastern Mediterranean Sea after passing through Syrian and Iraqi airspace and entering Turkish territory, the Turkish Defense Ministry announced Wednesday.

Pedro Sanchez has once again chosen to place himself firmly on the wrong side of history, doubling down Wednesday on his refusal to support the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran, threatening the cohesion of NATO and exposing himself as the Western leader most willing to provide diplomatic cover for a theocratic regime that has spent decades sponsoring terrorism across the globe.

Cyprus said a suspect object had been detected close to Lebanese airspace on Wednesday, and a government source said two Greek F-16 fighter jets had been scrambled to intercept it.

Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Iran's late Supreme Leader, has survived the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran in which his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed, two Iranian sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

An Israeli strike on a four-storey residential building has killed at least four people and wounded six others in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek with rescue teams working to pull families from beneath the rubble, state news agency NNA said on Wednesday.

Iranians will bid farewell to late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a ceremony in Tehran late on Wednesday, a senior Iranian official told state media.

Syria has reinforced its border with Lebanon with rocket units and thousands of troops, eight Syrian and Lebanese sources said on Tuesday, as conflict spread in the region including between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.  

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose a full U.S. trade embargo on Spain on Tuesday after the European and NATO ally refused to let the U.S. military use its bases for missions linked to strikes on Iran.

The Israeli military has issued a stark ultimatum to representatives of the Iranian regime operating in Lebanon: leave within 24 hours or face the consequences.