War with Iran spreads, as its neighbors warn strikes won't "go unanswered"

The Pentagon released the names of four Army Reserve soldiers who were killed in a drone attack in Kuwait over the weekend, marking the first U.S. deaths in the conflict with Iran.

Their names are:

• Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida
• Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska
• Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota
• Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, lowa

All four were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command based in Des Moines.

A total of six U.S. service members were killed Sunday at Port Shuaiba in Kuwait. The names of two others who were killed are being withheld until next of kin are notified.

Read more here.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut says Trump administration officials “refused to take off the table the insertion of ground troops” in Iran during a briefing with senators on Tuesday.

Murphy has criticized the Trump administration for not seeking authorization to use military force in Iran. In comments to reporters on Tuesday, he pushed back on the argument that authorization isn’t necessary because the war is limited in scope. Murphy said lawmakers were told “this is an open-ended operation that hasn’t even really started in earnest yet.”

“This is going to make the operation in Libya look like child’s play,” he said, referring to a 2011 air campaign against former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi that drew criticism because the Obama administration didn’t get congressional authorization. At the time, Murphy voted against authorizing force in Libya.

“There is no question this is war,” said Murphy, characterizing it as the largest war in the Middle East since the U.S.’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which began more than 20 years ago.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham urged President Trump to join Israel in striking Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based militant group and close ally of Iran.

Israel’s military said Tuesday it has struck Hezbollah targets and sent troops across the border into southern Lebanon, after the U.S.-designated terrorist group fired at Israel, seemingly joining in Iran’s retaliatory attacks amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

“I’m calling on President Trump today: Join Israel to attack Hezbollah. Avenge the Marines,” Graham told reporters on Tuesday, referring to a 1983 suicide bombing of a U.S. barracks in Lebanon that killed hundreds of American service members, an attack the U.S. has blamed on Hezbollah.

Graham, a Trump ally and Iran hardliner, defended Mr. Trump’s military campaign against Iran, arguing the Iranian regime is in its “death throes” and “the demise of this regime is at hand.” He also pushed back on criticism from Democrats that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States.

“The idea that you’re going to let a homicidal maniac get to the imminent stage, to me, is misplaced,” the South Carolina Republican said, speaking to reporters after Trump administration officials briefed senators on the Iran operations.

The State Department is urging Americans stranded in over a dozen countries in the Middle East to call a number to ask for help in securing transport out of the Middle East.

“[T]he State Department is actively securing military aircraft and charter flights for American citizens who wish to leave the Middle East,” Dylan Johnson, assistant secretary for global public affairs, wrote on X in a message reposted by other administration accounts.

The number Johnson posted, 1-202-501-4444, leads to a line for American citizens abroad. But on Tuesday afternoon, when a caller indicates they’re calling about the crisis in the Middle East, what they first hear is, “Please do not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation at this time. There are currently no United States evacuation points. Please continue to check the embassy’s website for updated information.”

There do, however, appear to be more options for callers who wait after a pause and indicate they are looking for help in a Middle East country other than Israel or Iran.

Americans in the Middle East have been urged to enroll in the Smart Traveller Enrollment Program, which helps them to get in touch with the U.S. government, and vice versa, more quickly.

The State Department in a press release Tuesday said the department is facilitating charter flights from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, “and will continue to secure additional capacity as security conditions allow.”

At the Capitol on Monday, Rubio said the U.S. launched its attacks on Iran after it became clear that Israel would strike the ayatollah and senior Iranian leaders.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher [number of] those killed,” Rubio said.

President Trump seemed to contradict Rubio at the White House earlier Tuesday, saying he felt strongly that Iran was going to attack first based on how negotiations were going, and that “if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” not the other way around.

Rubio addressed the discrepancy to reporters in the basement of the Capitol in the afternoon.

“The president made a decision, and the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program, that Iran was not going to be able to hide behind its ability to conduct these attacks. That decision had been made. The president made a decision to systematically destroy this terroristic capability that they had. We carried that out,” he said.

He continued: “I was very clear in that answer. This was a question of timing, of why this had to happen as a joint operation. Not the question of the intent. Once the president made a decision that negotiations were not going to work, that they were playing us on the negotiations and that this was a threat that was untenable, the decision was made to strike them. That’s what I said yesterday.”

The State Department says more than 9,000 Americans have returned to the U.S. from the Middle East over the past several days, including more than 300 from Israel.

“The Department is facilitating charter flights from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan for American citizens, and will continue to secure additional capacity as security conditions allow,” the department said. Its statement said commercial flights “remain available in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, and Egypt, and the Department is actively helping American citizens book those tickets.”

The department is encouraging Americans still in the Middle East to register at step.state.gov, or call 202-501-4444 for assistance.

A senior U.S. official and a source in the Middle East confirm the U.S. consulate in Dubai has been hit by a drone.

The Dubai government’s media office confirmed on X that a fire from a “drone-related incident” near the consulate has been contained and that no one was injured:

Writing on Truth Social, President Trump says he has ordered a federal agency to offer insurance for ships traveling through the Persian Gulf.

“Effective IMMEDIATELY, I have ordered the United States Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to provide, at a very reasonable price, political risk insurance and guarantees for the Financial Security of ALL Maritime Trade, especially Energy, traveling through the Gulf,” he wrote. “This will be available to all Shipping Lines.”

He added that the U.S. Navy will, if necessary, “begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible.” The Strait of Hormuz is a key strategic chokepoint connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean.

About 20 million barrels of oil transit the strait per day, representing about 20% of the world’s oil consumption, according to a government reportfrom last year. Most of the oil is bound for Asia.

On a call with reporters Tuesday afternoon, senior Trump administration officials described the negotiation process leading up to the president’s decision to strike Iran.

The president for weeks has been insisting that Iran needed to reach a deal to abandon its nuclear program. But one senior Trump administration official on the call said “it was very clear” the Iranian regime was trying to get the U.S. into a long, drawn-out process. The officials only agreed to speak with reporters on the condition of anonymity.

“We really thought that they would show real movement toward creating a real deal, but all we got were games and tricks and denials,” one official said.

“It was very clear they were just trying to buy time in order to preserve whatever they could to get past the term of President Trump, in order to, you know, get to a nuclear weapon,” the official added.

After the latest negotiations concluded in Geneva, the officials said they told the president it would take months to reach a deal that may not even be satisfactory.

“So basically, we came back to the president, we said, ‘Look, if you want us to make, you know, a deal, like an Obama kind of deal, maybe it would be an Obama-plus deal, we could probably get one done,” the same official said. “It would take months.”

“These guys definitely were not looking to make a quick deal,” the official continued. “And if you’re asking us at the end of the day if we’re going to look at you and say we’ve actually solved the issue, I said look, it’s going to take a lot for us to get there. Because they’re basically playing games with us all over the place. It’s just very, very slippery. So we said, ‘Look, if you decide that you want to do diplomacy, we’ll go, we’ll push as hard as possible, we’ll get in the room, we’ll fight for every point that we can.’ But these guys, they just really were showing that they didn’t want to, that they weren’t willing to make the type of deal that President Trump would have been satisfied with.”

Israel “attacked and destroyed” a secret nuclear facility in Tehran on Tuesday, according to Brigadier General Efi Defrin, a spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces.

Defrin said the facility was partially underground and that “a group of nuclear scientists secretly operated there who promoted and developed capabilities and knowledge for obtaining nuclear weapons.” He said Iran moved some nuclear activities to underground bunkers after last year’s U.S. and Israeli strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites.

“The regime tried to restore its efforts and hide them, thinking that we would not notice. They were wrong,” he said. “The Intelligence Branch detected and mapped these movements, and now the Air Force is attacking these headquarters throughout Tehran.”

Defrin said pilots in the Israeli Air Force have flown roughly 1,600 individual missions and dropped about 4,000 bombs on Iran since the war began.

“In the past 24 hours, hundreds of Air Force fighter jets and aircraft have launched approximately 300 consecutive attack waves in Iran, Lebanon, Tehran, and Beirut. We have simultaneously attacked hundreds of strategic targets and assets of the Iranian axis,” Defrin said in a statement.

— Shir Levy

Most of the FBI agentsfired by FBI Director Kash Patellast week worked on counterintelligence cases, including cases pertaining toIran, multiple sources told CBS News.

Approximatelya dozen or so FBI employees, including agents, analysts and support staff, were abruptly terminated over a two-day period last week after Patel lashed out over the discovery that his phone records and those of White House chief of staff Susie Wiles were subpoenaed by the FBI as part of special counselJack Smith’s probesinto President Trump.

The toll records at issue, which include the originating phone and recipient phone, date, time and duration of the call, are commonly sought during criminal probes and do not contain details about the content of phone calls.

Most of the people who were fired worked in some capacity on Smith’s probe into Mr. Trump’s retention of classified records after he left the White House in early 2021.

Read more here.

The head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said Tuesday that Iran was not days or weeks away from building a nuclear weapon.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was asked by CNN if “the Iranians were days or weeks away from building a bomb,” and he said, “No,” the outlet reported.

He said there were “many elements” in Iran that were “of serious concern,” including the “unjustified accumulation of huge amounts of almost military-grade material” and a “lack of transparency in inspections.”

But he said “we never had information indicating that there was a structured systematic program to build or to construct a nuclear weapon.”

The U.S. attacked nuclear sites in Iran last summer, which Grossi said caused “considerable” damage and left Iran’s nuclear program “perhaps we could say frozen, if not, almost stopped.”

The U.S. State Department says it is securing military aircraft and charter flights for Americans seeking to leave the Middle East.

“Yes, the State Department is actively securing military aircraft and charter flights for American citizens who wish to leave the Middle East,” Dylan Johnson, assistant secretary of state for global public affairs, wrote on X.

Johnson said they’ve been in “direct contact” with nearly 3,000 Americans abroad, and U.S. citizens in the Middle East should call 1-202-501-4444 “for assistance with departure options.”

The message comes over three days after the start of the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran, and a day after Americans were urged to “depart now” from 14 countries in the region “using available commercial transportation.”

Moments earlier on Tuesday, President Trump didn’t answer directly when asked if the U.S. would help evacuate Americans.

President Trump said there would be a “nuclear war” without U.S. intervention to stop Iran’s nuclear program and ambitions.

“If we don’t stop them or if we didn’t stop them or if we didn’t start, they’ve been decimated, but if we didn’t do what we’re doing right now, you would have had a nuclear war and they would have taken out many countries,” he said. “Because you know what? They’re sick people. They’re mentally ill, sick people. They’re angry, they’re crazy, they’re sick.”

President Trump said in the Oval Office Tuesday that there wasn’t an evacuation plan for Americans abroad because “it all happened very quickly.”

Americans are now being urged to leave 14 countries across the Middle East, while many commercial flights are canceled amid airport and airspace closures.

“I thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked,” he said. “They were getting ready to attack Israel. They were getting ready to attack others.”

The president didn’t answer a question about whether the U.S. government will send planes to help evacuate Americans.

A reporter in the Oval Office asked President Trump on Tuesday what the worst-case scenario would be in Iran.

At first, the president didn’t have an answer, saying “I don’t know if there’s a worst case.”

“We have them very much militarily from the military standpoint,” he said.

After a moment, the president said the worst-case scenario would be if someone just “as bad” as Iran’s now-deceased leaders takes over in Iran.

“I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, right?” he said. “That could happen. We don’t want that to happen. That would probably be the worst.”

Amid speculation that Israel pushed the U.S. to attack Iran, President Trump was asked if Israel forced his hand. “No,” he said in an Oval Office meeting Tuesday with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“I might have forced their hand,” the president said of Israel.

“If anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand,” he added.

Meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office, the president said the two leaders will be talking about Iran.

“We’ll obviously be talking a little bit about Iran today,” Mr. Trump said. “And he’s been helping us out.”

The president said the war in Iran is “coming along, as you see, very well.”

“They have no navy, it’s been knocked out,” he said. “They have no air force, it’s been knocked out. … Just about everything’s been knocked out.”

For his part, Merz said he and the U.S. are “on the same page” about getting the Iranian regime out.

“We will talk about the day after, what will happen then,” Merz said.

The president told POLITICO Tuesday morning that Iranian forces are “running out of launchers.”

“They’re running out and they’re running out of areas to shoot them, because they’re being decimated,” he told the publication.

But he also said Iranian forces are expected to “keep lobbing missiles for a while.”

Mr. Trump said it isn’t too late for him to consider working with someone in a new Iranian government, although he noted the U.S. has killed 49 senior Iranian leaders.

“Nope, not too late,” he said. “Forty-nine [senior Iranian leaders] were killed, don’t forget, so that goes pretty deep, right? New ones are emerging. A lot of people want the job. Some of them would be very good.”

Steve Witkoff, special envoy to the Middle East, told Fox News on Monday night that Iranian negotiators said they had enough enriched uranium to make 11 nuclear bombs.

Witkoff said President Trump sent him and Jared Kushner to the negotiations to determine whether the Iranians were serious about a peace deal. He said the negotiators told them they had “the inalienable right to enrich all their nuclear fuel that they possessed.”

He said: “That’s how they opened up. We of course responded that the president feels we have the inalienable right to stop you dead in your tracks.”

According to Witkoff, Iranian negotiators told the U.S. with “no shame” that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium, “and they’re aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs.”

“They were proud that they had evaded all sorts of oversight protocols to get to a place where they could deliver 11 nuclear bombs,” he said.

Witkoff said it was clear by the second meeting that it would be “impossible” to make a fair deal. “But we then went back for the third meeting just to give it the last college try.”

Read more here.

The U.S. Embassy in Beirut said Tuesday that it is closed.

“Due to ongoing regional tensions, U.S. Embassy Beirut will be closed until further notice,” it said.

“All other regular and emergency consular appointments have been cancelled,” it said. “We will communicate when the Embassy returns to normal operations.”

The U.S. embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are also closed.

China has condemned the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran and is calling for the military operations to be halted.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi – in phone calls with Russian, Iranian, French and Omani foreign ministers – said it is unacceptable for the U.S. and Israel to launch attacks against Iran during ongoing negotiations and to blatantly attack and kill a sovereign country’s leader.

Beijing is calling for a stop to military operations, a return to dialogue and negotiation, and joint opposition to unilateral actions, according to information shared with CBS News by a Chinese official.

Wang stressed in calls that China supports Iran in defending itself.

Amazon said drones struck three of its Middle East data centers, causing outages.

Drones directly struck two Amazon Web Services facilities in the United Arab Emirates, and a third Amazon data center in Bahrain was damaged by nearby drone activity, the company said in a post on Monday on AWS’s health dashboard.

“These strikes have caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to our infrastructure, and in some cases required fire suppression activities that resulted in additional water damage,” AWS said.

Operations in the Middle East remain “significantly impaired,” AWS said, noting that “customers are experiencing elevated error rates and degraded availability for services.”

Amazon said it is working to restore services and repair physical damage to its facilities, while cautioning that the “broader operating environment in the Middle East remains unpredictable.”

The company encouraged its customers in the region to back up data and consider migrating workloads to servers in other regions.

Read more here.

Stocks in the U.S. plummeted Tuesday as jittery investors reacted to the potential fallout from the war with Iran, including the impact on global oil supplies.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 1,110 points, or 2.2%, in early trading, while the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite each dropped 1.9%.

“Global financial markets are in disarray, anticipating a significant interruption in supplies of crude oil and natural gas because of President Trump’s war against Iran,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist at investment advisory firm High Frequency Economics, said in a note to clients. “The conflict is spreading, and confidence in the continuity of energy supplies is declining in parallel.”

Read more here.

The U.K. is deciding whether it will deploy its HMS Duncan warship to protect its Royal Air Force base in Cyprus, after an Iranian drone hit a runway at the base on Monday, CBS News’ partner network BBC News reported Tuesday.

The potential move comes after President Trump told Britain’s Sun tabloid newspaper that U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer had taken a “not helpful” stance on the war with Iran.

The relationship between the U.S. and U.K. was “not like it used to be,” Mr. Trump told the Sun, as he praised other European countries, including France and Germany.

“I never thought I’d see that. I never thought I’d see that from the U.K.,” Mr. Trump said.

Starmer declined the Trump administration’s request to use British bases for offensive operations in Iran, but gave permission for them to be used for what the prime minister called the “defensive purpose” of eliminating Iranian missile installations.

On Monday, Starmer told U.K. lawmakers that “the lessons of history have taught us that it is important when we make decisions like this, that we establish there is a lawful basis for what the United Kingdom is doing. That is one of the lessons from Iraq, and that there’s a viable thought-through plan with an objective that can be achieved or has a viable prospect of being achieved. That is the principle that I applied to the decisions that I made over the weekend.”

When asked Tuesday whether the U.S. strikes in Iran were legal under international law, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones said: “It’s not for me to comment on the legal basis of actions taken by other countries.”

Iran’s state media played down an apparent attempt by the U.S. or Israel to blow up a gathering of senior clerics expected to soon pick the country’s new supreme leader, following the killing on Saturday of long-time ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran’s Fars news agency said strikes hit buildings in the capital Tehran and the holy city of Qom, but that the Tehran site had been evacuated and the Qom building was no longer in use.

“The grounds of the Assembly of Experts in Tehran (the former building of the Islamic Consultative Assembly) were also targeted by attacks from fighter jets of the terrorist armies of America and Israel,” Iran’s state-run Fars news agency said Tuesday. “Despite the intensity of the attacks, these buildings had been evacuated in advance, and fortunately, this crime resulted in no loss of life.”

Iran’s Mehr news agency also played down the impact of the strike, calling the building that was hit in Qom “an old, secondary structure” no longer used for meetings of the Assembly of Experts. The assembly is composed of 88 members who, under Iran’s constitution, are tasked with electing the country’s supreme leader who alone has the ultimate say on all matters.

Before the strike, Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency said in a post on social media, in the Farsi language used in Iran, that it did not “matter who is chosen today; his fate has been decreed. Only the Iranian nation will choose their future leader.” The message was accompanied by a graphic depicting senior Iranian clerics being toppled as dominoes.

On Sunday, one day into the war, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said if the U.S. and Israel’s goal was “regime change, that is an impossible mission. The absence or death of the leader does not mean that.”

Araghchi told the Qatari TV network Al Jazeera that “state institutions remain in place, and we have constitutional procedures. You may see the election of a new supreme leader within a day or two.”

The national average for a gallon of gas in the U.S. climbed to $3.11 on Tuesday, according to AAA. It is the first time the average cost of a gallon has risen over $3 since early December.

Fuel costs had already edged higher this year on concern about flaring tension between the U.S. and Iran. The national average a month ago was $2.88, while a week ago it was $2.95.

Read more here.

The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Defense said the country’s air defenses had intercepted 11 ballistic missiles and 123 drones on Tuesday alone as Iran continued lashing out at Gulf nations in response to the joint U.S.-Israeli assault.

The ministry said one missile landed in UAE territory but caused no human casualties.

Since the start of what the UAE called “the blatant Iranian aggression” in response to the war, the ministry said a total of 186 ballistic missiles had been launched toward the country, 172 of which were destroyed, while 13 others fell into the sea.

“Additionally, 812 Iranian drones were detected and 755 intercepted, while 57 fell within state territory,” the ministry said, adding that eight cruise missiles were also detected and destroyed.

“The attacks resulted in three fatalities of Pakistani, Nepali, and Bangladeshi nationalities, and 68 minor injuries among Emirati, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Filipino, Pakistani, Iranian, Indian, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Azerbaijani, Yemeni, Ugandan, Eritrean, Lebanese, and Afghan nationals,” the ministry said.

The statement said the UAE “reserves its full right to respond to this escalation and to take all necessary measures to protect its territory, people, residents, and to safeguard its sovereignty, security, stability, and national interests.”

President Trump said Tuesday that it was “too late” for talks with what is left of Iran’s ruling theocracy.

“Their air defense, Air Force, Navy, and Leadership is gone. They want to talk. I said “Too Late!” he posted on his Truth Social platform.

In an interview with The Atlantic published on Sunday, one day into the war, Mr. Trump said Iran wanted to talk, “and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them.”

Israel’s national emergency medical response agency, Magen David Adom, said there were at least two sites in central Israel hit by Iran’s latest missile attack, which an IDF spokesperson said earlier involved the use of cluster munitions.

MDA said medics and paramedics were “providing medical treatment to 5 injured, including: a 40-year-old woman in moderate condition with a blow to the head and 4 additional injured people in light condition from glass fragments and blows to the head.”

The agency shared images of significant damage to residential buildings at the locations, which it did not give exact locations for.

An Israeli military spokesman accused Iran of committing repeated war crimes on Tuesday, citing what he said was a new attack on central Israel using “missiles containing cluster sub-munitions” targeting civilians.

“The Iranian regime’s war crimes continue,” Israel Defense Forces international spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said in a social media post. He shared with the message a previous statement he posted on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, in which he also accused Iran of using cluster bombs to target “a densely populated civilian area in Israel.”

The IDF said Israel’s Home Front Command had deployed search and rescue teams, along with other emergency response personnel, “at the impact sites in central Israel,” adding that the “circumstances of the impact are under review.”

The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, warned Tuesday of a threat of “imminent missile and UAV attacks” on the far eastern Saudi city of Dhahran, stressing that any Americans in the city should not attempt to come to the American consulate there.

“Take cover immediately in your residence on the lowest available floor and away from windows. Do not go outside,” the embassy said in its alert. “The U.S. Consulate in Dhahran urges U.S. citizens in Dhahran to shelter in place, review security plans in the event of an attack, and to stay alert in case of additional future attacks. U.S. Consulate personnel are sheltering in place.”

For the first time since the U.S. and Israel launched their joint attack on Iran over the weekend, it has been confirmed that one of Iran’s key nuclear sites was bombed.

The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency issued a statement Tuesday saying that, “based on the latest available satellite imagery, IAEA can now confirm some recent damage to entrance buildings of Iran’s underground Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP). No radiological consequence expected and no additional impact detected at FEP itself, which was severely damaged in the June conflict.”

Natanz is one of the three major Iranian nuclear sites that the U.S. struck in its Midnight Hammer operation in June last year, which President Trump claimed had “obliterated Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.”

The IAEA’s director general Rafael Grossi warned about a week before the latest war started, however, that “most of the material that Iran had accumulated up until June of last year, despite the [U.S.] bombings and the attacks, is still there, in large quantities, where it was at the time of the strikes.”

“Some of it may be less accessible, but the material is still there. From a non-proliferation standpoint, the material remains,” he said, citing the hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium still believed to be underground in Iran as a reason for the U.S. and Iran to urgently reach an “agreement that would prevent new military action in the region.”

The State Department is urging Americans to leave 14 countries across the Middle East amid the ongoing war with Iran, which has led to U.S. embassy closures in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia was attacked by two drones, causing a small fire and limited damage, the Saudi Ministry of Defense said Monday on X. The embassy urged U.S. citizens in Riyadh and the key commercial cities of Dhahran and Jeddah to shelter in place. It said it would be closed Tuesday.

The U.S. Embassy in Kuwait said it was closed until further notice “due to ongoing regional tensions,” and that all consular appointments were canceled. It was closed a day after smoke was seen rising from the mission following Iranian attacks on the country.

Americans were urged late Monday to “depart now” from Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. They were urged to leave “using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks.”

The State Department also told all non-emergency U.S. government personnel and the families of government personnel to leave Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Read more here.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman warned Tuesday that Iran’s attacks on the country “will not go unanswered, and today all options are open to Qatar.”

Majid Al-Ansari, in televised remarks, dismissed Iran’s reasoning to defend its retaliatory fire at Persian Gulf nations that Tehran deems supportive of the joint U.S.-Israeli attack, saying the Iranian missile and drone fire at its neighbor could not be justified.

Al-Ansari stressed that Qatar has consistently sought to avoid regional conflicts while facilitating dialogue between Iran and the international community. He expressed solidarity with other Gulf states and Jordan, which have all come under Iranian fire since Saturday, condemning the attacks as violations of their sovereignty.

“The attacks were targeted directly at Qatari interests and vital facilities inside the country; the targeting was not limited to military or American interests, but also struck Qatari territory,” he said, rebutting claims by Iran’s foreign minister.

Al-Ansari stressed Qatar’s right to self-defense under the United Nations charter and said the small Gulf state was focused on defending its territory.

“This represents a blatant violation of our national sovereignty, a direct threat to our security and territorial integrity, and an unacceptable escalation that threatens regional stability,” he said of Iran’s strikes. “We retain our full right to respond.”

Esmaeil Baqaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, accused the U.S. and Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity on Tuesday over alleged attacks on hospitals and a girls’ school.

He said the Gandhi Hospital in Tehran was damaged in an attack “following the bombing of schools and the Massacre of 171 innocent girls in the city of #Minab.”

On Monday, the World Health Organization said it understood “patients were moved due to nearby explosions that caused collateral damage to the hospital,” Reuters reported. The WHO also said it was working to verify reports of three other medical centers being hit.

Witnesses told Reuters on Sunday that the Gandhi Hospital was hit by Israeli strikes.

Baqaei wrote on X that the alleged attacks on civilian infrastructure came “despite the aggressors’ claims of possessing the most advanced military hardware and precision-targeting systems.”

“The deliberate targeting and destruction of civilian infrastructure, medical facilities, schools, and media institutions by the #UnitedStates and #Israel, with the aim of paralyzing civilian life, constitute blatant war crime and crimes against humanity. No responsible state can remain silent in the face of these atrocities,” Baqaei said.

CBS News asked the Israeli and U.S. militaries again Tuesday for any comment on the strike that allegedly hit the school in Minab. The IDF did not reply, and the U.S. military’s Central Command told CBS News it had no statement to share on the reports.

Six Persian Gulf nations appear to be on the verge of ending their neutrality in the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran, after accusing Tehran of “reckless and indiscriminate attacks” on their territories.

The Gulf Cooperation Council said Sunday that it maintained the “option to respond to Iranian attacks” to protect security in the region. It was just one sign of a potential major escalation in the conflict sparked Saturday by the joint U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defense said the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh sustained “minor material damage” after being hit by two Iranian drones. That came a day after an Iranian attack targeted the vast Saudi Arabian oil refinery at Ras Tanura — the biggest such facility in the country and one of the biggest in the world.

Iran has shocked the region by firing hundreds of missiles and drones at every state across the Persian Gulf, hitting luxury hotels in Dubai and Bahrain, residential areas in Doha, Qatar, military sites and energy infrastructure in Kuwait, and vital seaports and waterways in Oman.

All these nations host major American military bases so, by default, they are in the American camp in Iran’s view. Iran’s foreign minister has said repeatedly that the Islamic Republic’s fight is not against its neighbors, but against the U.S. military assets they welcome.

Tehran’s aim with the missile and drone fire has likely been to pressure the Gulf’s monarchies to push their allies in Washington to end the war, but the Iranian calculus appears to be backfiring.

After Qatar’s air force shot two Iranian bombers out of the sky for the first time, there was a clear risk that other countries would decide to join in a war threatening to spread quickly across the Middle East’s long-peaceful Gulf region.

Before the U.S. launched its joint attack on Iran, in close coordination with Israel, President Trump had expressed frustration with progress in what were ongoing talks over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

On Monday, Mr. Trump articulated the reasons he said he had decided, despite the ongoing diplomacy, to order U.S. strikes on Iran, sparking what he says may well be a weeks-long war.

In his first live public remarks on the operation, he offered four core reasons for the campaign:

• Destroying Iran’s missile capabilities;
• Annihilating Iran’s navy;
• Preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons;
• Ensuring the regime can’t continue to arm, fund or direct “terrorist armies” outside its borders.

A senior administration official said the operation would continue until all four objectives are achieved. Click here to read more about the Iranian capabilities and alleged ambitions, which Mr. Trump said had made this war a “last best chance” to deal with what he claims was an imminent threat to American security.

Israel’s military warned people in at least 80 southern Lebanese cities, towns and villages to evacuate and not return on Tuesday as it announced that troops had been sent across the border into the neighboring country “to create an additional layer of protection for our towns.”

“Forces have begun an operation to thicken the line of defense for northern communities. As part of this, we evacuated the Lebanese population for their own safety. We have deployed forces across the border, holding several strategic points along the border,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement, adding that it had “achieved operational control in the area, with combatants prepared to act against any threat.”

Israel has hammered the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon for years, and with the U.S.-designated terror group joining Iran’s retaliatory attacks against perceived Israeli and U.S. interests across the region in the last few days, Israel had indicated that a new ground operation could be coming.

“We continue to strike Hezbollah’s centers of gravity in Beirut. Overnight, we completed a wave of strikes on Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters,” the IDF said Tuesday, adding that “the ongoing activity, in cooperation with the U.S., will continue to deepen the damage, eliminate launchers, and reduce their numbers as part of the operation’s goals.”

The Israel Defense Forces warned Tuesday morning of a new Iranian missile launch and urged people to heed orders from the country’s Home Front Command to seek shelter.

“Defense systems are operating to intercept the threat,” the IDF said, repeating warnings that have been issued multiple times daily since the U.S. and Israel launched their blistering attacks on Iran Saturday morning.

Red alert sirens were reportedly blaring across central Israel, including in the capital Tel Aviv, and there were unconfirmed reports of at least one impact but the nation’s emergency MDA medical service said there were no immediate casualties confirmed.

The MDA said teams were treating two people injured “on their way to a protected area,” but it didn’t indicate the injuries were serious, or the result of the Iranian fire.

The assessment by the U.S. and Israeli militaries as of Monday was that they had destroyed roughly half of the 500 or so missile launchers Iran had before the American “Midnight Hammer” attacks on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities in June. They estimate that Iran could still have around 250, but they believe that by the end of the week, 70-80% of the country’s launchers will likely have been destroyed.

The last of Iran’s missile launchers may be harder to reach because many are underground.

The assessment was that Monday saw notably fewer ballistic missile barrages due to Iran’s diminished launching capacity, but it was also likely that the country is trying to ration its stockpiles, given President Trump’s remarks that the war could last five weeks or longer.

U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf have faced a significant bombardment from Iran since the start of the U.S. and Israeli war on the Islamic Republic on Saturday.

Qatar’s Ministry of Defensesaid that as of Monday it has successfully intercepted 90 ballistic missiles, 24 drones, three cruise missiles and two Su-24 fighter jets.

Kuwait’s Ministry of Defense said Monday that it had detected 178 ballistic missiles and 384 drones since the start of the war, according to the country’s official news agency. Some 27 members of the Kuwaiti army have been injured, the ministry said.

Six American service membershave been killed and 18 seriously wounded in the U.S. military’s Operation Epic Fury as of Tuesday morning, according to U.S. Central Command spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins.

The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia was attacked by two drones, the Saudi Ministry of Defense said on X, causing what the ministry described as a small fire and limited damage.

The apparent drone attack in the Saudi capital of Riyadh came as several U.S. allies in the Gulf region face days of retaliatory attacks by Iranian drones and missiles, following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.

The embassy has urged U.S. citizens in Riyadh and the key commercial cities of Dhahran and Jeddah to shelter in place. It said it would be closed Tuesday.

In an interview Monday night, President Trump said that “you’ll be finding out very soon” when asked who now controls Iran.

Speaking toNewsNation’s Kellie Meyer, the president also reacted to the strike on the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, saying “you’ll find out soon” whenasked about retaliation for that attack.

The U.S. embassy in Kuwait on Tuesday said it was closed until further notice, a day after smoke was seen rising from the mission following Iranian attacks on the country.

“Due to ongoing regional tensions, the US Embassy in Kuwait will be closed until further notice. We have cancelled all regular and emergency consular appointments,” the embassy said in a statement on X.

President Trump said late Monday on Truth Social, “The United States Munitions Stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better,” and that the U.S. has a “virtually unlimited supply of these weapons. Wars can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully, using just these supplies.”

“At the highest end, we have a good supply, but are not where we want to be. Much additional high grade weaponry is stored for us in outlying countries,” Mr. Trump added.

Mr. Trump has predicted the war in Iran could last at least five weeks, and he has not ruled out the possibility of putting American boots on the ground in Iran.

State Department evacuations of non-emergency personnel and family reached six nations Tuesday with the inclusion of the United Arab Emirates.

The other nations where that’s happening are Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.

The UAE, home to Dubai and Abu Dhabi and long considered a safe corner of the Middle East, has been dragged into the Iran war with attacks on its territory and missile interceptions.

In addition, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has advised Americans there about what he calls “VERY LIMITED” options for leaving, mainly via bus to Egypt, using his X account, saying, “We are getting a lot of requests regarding evacuating from Israel from American citizens who are currently in Israel or who have family here.”

CBS/AP

President Trump on Monday submitted a War Powers Resolution notification to Congress regarding the Feb. 28 military strikes against the government of Iran.

“Despite my Administration’s repeated efforts to achieve a diplomatic solution to Iran’s malign behavior, the threat to the United States and its allies and partners became untenable,” Mr. Trump wrote to Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley in the March 2 letter, obtained by CBS News.

Mr. Trump writes that “at my direction,” U.S. forces conducted precision strikes against “numerous targets within Iran,” including ballistic missile sites, maritime mining capabilities, air defenses and command-and-control capabilities. The strikes, he writes, were undertaken to protect U.S. forces in the region, protect the homeland, ensure the free flow of maritime commerce through the Strait of Hormuz and act in collective self-defense of U.S. allies, including Israel.

The president states that no U.S. ground forces were used and that the mission was designed to minimize civilian casualties, deter future attacks and neutralize Iran’s malign activities.

He acknowledges in the letter that “it is not possible at this time to know the full scope and duration of military operations that may be necessary,” adding that U.S. forces remain postured to take further action as needed.

The president wrote that he directed the action pursuant to his constitutional authority as commander in chief and is submitting the report consistent with the War Powers Resolution.

President Trump reiterated in remarks at the White House on Monday that the U.S. is “substantially ahead” of its time projection for the operation in Iran, but added that the military was prepared for a longer campaign.

“Whatever it takes, we will always — and we have right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that,” he said. “We’ll do it.”

Mr. Trump also rebuffed a claim from an unidentified person. The president said the person alleged he would soon get bored of the military operation.

“I don’t get bored. There’s nothing boring about this,” Mr. Trump said.