Eight things that happened on Monday
- US president Donald Trump described the war in Iran as “just an excursion into something that had to be done”, adding the conflict would be over “very soon”. Earlier, he said he had yet to decide on whether or not to send US troops into the country.
- US and Israeli war planes launched fresh waves of strikes at targets across Iran, as Tehran continued strikes on US targets in neighbouring countries. More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran since the war began.
- The price of Brent crude oil peaked at high cost of $119 per barrel before dropping below $90
- Israel further pressed its offensive against Iran-back Hizbullah, with raids on the ground in southern Lebanon and air strikes on the capital Beirut. Israel’s attacks have killed more than 400 people in Lebanon and displaced nearly 700,000.
- Thousands gathered in Tehran’s Enghelab Square to offer allegiance to the country’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the conflict.
- Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that his country’s main goal is to keep the country out of the “blaze” of the Iran war after Turkey said that Nato air defences had shot down a second Iranian ballistic missile that had entered its airspace.
- A newly released video adds to the evidence that a US missile likely hit an Iranian elementary school where 175 people, many of them children, were reported killed.
- Five members of the Iranian women’s football team have been granted asylum in Australia after reportedly escaping their government minders following a tournament, Trump said.
Most Americans think petrol prices are going to rise in coming months following US president Donald Trump’s decision to launch military strikes on Iran, and many expect a protracted conflict, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Monday evening.
Some 67 per cent of respondents in the four-day poll – including 44 per cent of Republicans and 85 per cent of Democrats – said they expect fuel prices in the US to get worse over the next year. Sixty per cent of Americans expect US military involvement in Iran will “go on for an extended period of time”.
The poll, which closed before the president had suggested the conflict could be close to ending, found just 29 per cent of Americans approve of the strikes, little changed from a 27 per cent approval rate in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in the hours immediately following the start of the military campaign.
Both polls had margins of error of about 3 percentage points. Some 64 per cent of poll respondents – including one in four Republicans and nine in 10 Democrats – said Trump has not clearly explained the goals of US military involvement.