{"id":548672,"date":"2026-03-18T16:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/548672\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T16:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T16:06:11","slug":"us-iran-war-womens-iranian-soccer-team-arrive-back-in-war-torn-region-after-fraught-journey-from-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/548672\/","title":{"rendered":"US-Iran war: Women\u2019s Iranian soccer team arrive back in war-torn region after fraught journey from Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Israel\u2019s defence minister Israel Katz made the announcement on Wednesday that Iran\u2019s Intelligence Minister, Esmail Khatib, has been killed, AP reports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">The claim follows the killings of top Iranian security official Ali Larijani and the head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard\u2019s all-volunteer Basij force.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">\u201csignificant surprises are expected throughout this day on all the fronts,\u201d Katz said, without elaborating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">There has been no comment from Iran yet.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/7b63dbc40d5281b71d3987869292bb774c461c3b.jpg\" alt=\"Esmaeil Khatib, minister of intelligence (2nd left) is said to have been killed in an Israeli strike overnight.\" class=\"css-16r7l45-StyledImage en5ut4d0\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>Esmaeil Khatib, minister of intelligence (2nd left) is said to have been killed in an Israeli strike. Credit: ATPImages\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s defence minister Israel Katz made the announcement on Wednesday that Iran\u2019s Intelligence Minister, Esmail Khatib, has been&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,12241,44,84,41,39,42,40,5071,1720],"class_list":["post-548672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-politics","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}