U.S. and Iran vow to step up attacks in fast-spreading war; Azerbaijan caught in crossfire

Residents of the British enclave of Akrotiri, on the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, were reportedly ordered to shelter in place Thursday as authorities warned of an ongoing security threat.

The U.K. has a  sovereign military base in Akrotiri, which it has granted the U.S. use of for “defensive purposes” amid the ongoing war with Iran, that has already been targeted at least twice by missiles or drones since the conflict began.

According to the Cypriot news outlet in-cyprus, an alert sounded Thursday and residents were instructed to remain in place until further official notification, and to move away from windows and take shelter behind or underneath sturdy furniture. The Cypriot government later announced that no threat was detected, in-cyprus said.

A runway on the British Akrotiri base sustained damage on Monday from a suspected Iranian drone strike, though there were unconfirmed reports on Thursday that it could have been launched from Lebanon, where the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah is based.

Italy, Spain, France and the Netherlands were set to deploy naval assets to Cyprus following the drone strikes, the Reuters news agency cited Italian Defense Minister Guido Crusto as saying Thursday.

Six people were hurt Thursday as debris fell to the ground from drone interceptions, the government of the United Arab Emirates’ capital Abu Dhabi said Thursday. 

Iran has launched dozens of rounds of missiles and drones at countries across the Persian Gulf in retaliation for the ongoing U.S.-Israeli attacks which began on Saturday.

“Abu Dhabi authorities have responded to an incident of debris falling in two locations,” the Abu Dhabi Media Office said in a statement shared on social media, adding that “following the successful interception of drones by air defense systems” six Pakistani and Nepali nationals sustained minor or moderate injuries.

According to data compiled by the private Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, Iran has launched 941 drones, 189 ballistic missiles and 8 cruise missiles at the UAE since the war began on Saturday. The vast majority of the weapons have been intercepted.

The administration of the United Arab Emirates’ capital Abu Dhabi said Thursday that limited flights had resumed from its major airport — offering hope for thousands of people stranded by the shutdown of aviation hubs across the Persian Gulf due to the ongoing war U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

In a statement, Abu Dhabi authorities said Zayed International Airport had “resumed limited flight operations following a period of disruption in a significant display of resilience from Abu Dhabi’s ecosystem.”

“Efforts were conducted over the past few days under strict coordination on safety protocols and in close cross-sector collaboration to ensure comprehensive support. This unified response included the provision of more than 4,300 complimentary hotel rooms across 74 hotels for approximately 7,000 passengers, ensuring those affected by scheduling changes were accommodated in comfort,” the official Abu Dhabi Media Office said in its statement. 

“Passengers holding confirmed tickets are requested to contact their airlines for the latest flight schedules and are urged to travel to the airport only after receiving specific guidance on when to arrive at AUH for departure,” the statement said.

Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said Iranian drones hit an airport terminal and a school building on Thursday, warning that it reserved “the right to take appropriate retaliatory measures” against its southern neighbor.

It was the first impact reported by Azerbaijan amid the widening war sparked by the joint U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran on Saturday.

“One drone crashed into the terminal building of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic Airport, and another drone crashed near a school building in the village of Shekarabad,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“We strongly condemn these drone attacks carried out from the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which resulted in damage to the airport building and the injury of two civilians,” the ministry said, demanding that “Iran clarify the above issue within a short period of time, provide an explanation, and take the necessary and urgent measures to prevent such incidents from recurring in the future.”

“The Azerbaijani side reserves the right to take appropriate retaliatory measures,” it said, adding that Iran’s top diplomat in the country had been summoned.

Iran’s official state news agency Fars quoted a commander of the country’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as saying Thursday that the coming days would bring “more intense and widespread” attacks by the Islamic Republic.

Iranian state television aired a message earlier in the day from an ayatollah in Iran calling for the “shedding” of blood from Israelis and President Trump.

The message from Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli represented one of the few statements from Iran’s powerful Islamic clerics since the war began.

“We are now on the verge of a great test and we must be careful to fully preserve this unity, to fully preserve this alliance,” Amoli said, adding a call for “the shedding of Zionist blood, the shedding of Trump’s blood.”

Israel’s airspace reopened for limited incoming flights Thursday after being closed since the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began.

Under the phased plan, one passenger flight per hour will be allowed in the first 24 hours, totaling about 5,000 people, with more later depending on security.

Outgoing commercial flights are still prohibited.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed an attack Thursday on an American oil tanker in the northern reaches of the Persian Gulf, but it appears to have been a Bahamas-flagged ship that reported a possible sea-drone strike.

Maritime security agencies including Vanguard said the attack claimed by Iran was likely against the Sonangol Namibe, which was tracked off the coast of Kuwait on Thursday.

The company that operates the oil tanker, Sonangol Marine Services, told CBS News in a statement on Thursday that it was “approached by an unknown small vessel while anchored near Khor Al Zubair, Iraq” early on Thursday, “and a short time later a loud bang was heard.”

“All 23 crew members are safe and accounted for and have mustered inside the ship. The crew reports that a port ballast tank is losing water which suggests some form of hull breach but the ship remains stable and safely afloat. The ship was in ballast with no cargo on board and there currently are no reports of any pollution,” the company said.

The British maritime security agency UKMTO earlier reported an explosion off the port side of the tanker, which lines up with information provided by the Namibe’s operators. Public tracking data showed the tanker near the Iraq-Kuwait border in the far northern Persian Gulf. 

CBS News has obtained satellite imagery showing the site of a school in Minab, southern Iran, where Iranian officials say a U.S. or Israeli strike killed as many as 175 people over the weekend, many of them schoolgirls. 

CBS News had previously confirmed that the building was located in close proximity to two sites controlled by the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including the IRGC’s Seyyed Al-Shohada Barracks.

Analysis of images shared by Planet Labs shows the school was not the only building damaged at the site. Imagery captured four days after the purported Feb. 28 strike shows another collapsed building more clearly within the IRGC site, and a hole in the roof of another building, as well as rubble in the area.

Neither the U.S. nor Israel has said it was behind the strike. An Israel Defense Forces spokesman told CBS News earlier in the week that the IDF had not “found any connection to our operations.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the Pentagon was investigating.

“Mr. Trump! Was this the hymn you composed for freedom in Iran?!,” Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, raged in a social media post on Thursday, condemning what he called “the mass martyrdom of innocent girls in Minab at a school by Israeli–American criminals.”

The Israeli military said it launched targeted attacks in Lebanon at the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group, along with a “large-scale wave of strikes against infrastructure” in Iran’s capital, without elaborating. 

Explosions were heard in multiple locations in Tehran a short time later.

CBS/AP

The Senate defeated a war powers resolution that sought to block President Trump from using further military force against Iran, rejecting a Democratic push to rebuke the president amid the administration’s shifting justifications for the war and warnings about more American casualties to come.

The measure was voted down 47-53.

Read more here.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Wednesday that Israel and the U.S. did not have “much of a choice” but to “take action” and strike Iran. 

In an interview with “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil, Herzog said there were concerns that Iran was going to expand its weapons arsenal, and that the U.S. and Israel believed Iran had “another new secret plan to rush” to develop a nuclear weapon.

“When you know that they have invested all their nation’s resources and money in creating havoc in the Middle East as you try to make peace with Muslim countries,” Herzog said. “When you know that they have another new secret plan to rush to the bomb, you have to take action.” 

The U.S. intelligence community assessed last year that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, and the U.S. and Israel haven’t provided evidence of a new plan to develop nuclear bombs. Iran has long insisted its uranium enrichment program is only intended for peaceful purposes, though it enriches well beyond the level needed for non-weapons uses.

Herzog also said that Israel is not calling for a ground invasion of the country.

“Let me be clear, I’m not calling on any boots on the ground. I’m not asking any American or anyone else,” Herzog said.

Read more here.