US expects Iran operation to conclude in ‘weeks, not months’, says Rubio
Secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Friday the US expects its operation in Iran to conclude in “weeks, not months” after he met with G7 foreign ministers in France.
Rubio also said Iran may decide to set up a tolling system for the strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives at the G7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting with partner countries in Cernay-la-Ville outside Paris, France, Friday, March 27, 2026. Photograph: Michel Euler/APShare
Updated at 13.17 EDT
Key events
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G7 to support US in opposing Iranian toll plan for strait of Hormuz, says Rubio
42m ago
US expects Iran operation to conclude in ‘weeks, not months’, says Rubio
2h ago
US-Israeli strikes hit uranium processing plan, says Iranian atomic energy organisation
3h ago
EU energy ministers to hold extraordinary videocall on Iran war
4h ago
US can only confirm about a third of Iran’s missile arsenal destroyed, sources say
5h ago
Iran guards say strait of Hormuz ‘closed’ to hostile shipping
6h ago
Israel to ‘intensify’ strikes on Iran to stop missile fire, warns defence minister
7h ago
More than over 370,000 children displaced in Lebanon and 121 killed, UNICEF says
8h ago
Europeans to press Rubio over Russian support for Iran at G7 meeting
8h ago
Shipping to and from ports of US-Israeli allies still prohibited, says IRGC
8h ago
US-Israeli strikes damage more than 100 museums and historic buildings, says Iran
8h ago
Marco Rubio in France for G7 after Trump insults allies
9h ago
Saudi Arabia urging US to keep up Iran attacks, intelligence source confirms
10h ago
US troops using Persian Gulf citizens as human shields, says Iranian foreign minister
10h ago
Israeli military says it carried out ‘wide-scale’ strikes on Tehran
11h ago
Interim summary
11h ago
US and Iran plan to meet soon in Pakistan, says German minister
12h ago
UAE pushing for international force to reopen strait of Hormuz – report
15h ago
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G7 to support US in opposing Iranian toll plan for strait of Hormuz, says Rubio
Rubio also said that he had won support from his G7 colleagues to oppose Iran’s attempts to impose a toll on ships crossing the strait of Hormuz, Agence France -Presse reports.
“Not only is this illegal, it’s unacceptable, it’s dangerous to the world, and it’s important that the world have a plan to confront it,” Rubio said.
Meanwhile, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said that Iran had not responded to a plan to end the war but had sent “messages” showing an interest in diplomacy.
“We haven’t gotten it yet,” Rubio told reporters in Paris after G7 talks.
“We’ve had an exchange of messages and indications from the Iranian system – whatever’s left of it – about a willingness to talk about certain things.”
The US-Israeli war against Iran is unlikely to lead to “regime change”, German chancellor Friedrich Merz said Friday, as the month-long conflict showed no signs of abating.
“Is regime change really the goal?” he said at a forum in Frankfurt organised by the FAZ newspaper.
“If that’s the goal, I don’t think you’ll achieve it. It’s mostly gone wrong” in past conflicts, he said, pointing to the Afghanistan war.
ShareUS expects Iran operation to conclude in ‘weeks, not months’, says Rubio
Secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Friday the US expects its operation in Iran to conclude in “weeks, not months” after he met with G7 foreign ministers in France.
Rubio also said Iran may decide to set up a tolling system for the strait of Hormuz.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives at the G7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting with partner countries in Cernay-la-Ville outside Paris, France, Friday, March 27, 2026. Photograph: Michel Euler/APShare
Updated at 13.17 EDT
An Iran-linked hacker group has accessed an email account of FBI director Kash Patel and published personal photos and other material online, US media reported Friday.
CNN and other US media outlets, citing sources familiar with the breach, said the hack of Patel’s email was claimed by the Handala Hack Team, a pro-Iranian hacktivist group.
According to CNN, the stolen emails include personal, business and travel correspondence and appear to date from 2011 to 2022, prior to Patel being named FBI director by President Donald Trump.
More than 300 US troops have been wounded since the start of the Iran war on 28 February, US Central Command said on Friday.
“Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, approximately 303 US service members have been wounded. The vast majority of these injuries have been minor, and 273 troops have returned to duty,” US Navy captain Tim Hawkins said.
A US official who asked not to be identified told AFP that 10 troops remain seriously wounded.
A further 13 troops have been killed in the war, according to the latest figures, with seven killed in the Gulf and six in Iraq.
ShareUS-Israeli strikes hit uranium processing plan, says Iranian atomic energy organisation
US-Israeli strikes hit a uranium processing facility in central Iran on Friday, the country’s atomic energy organisation said.
“The plant in Ardakan, located in Yazd Province, was targeted minutes ago in an attack by the American-Zionist enemy,” it said on its Telegram channel, adding the attack “did not result in the release of any radioactive material.”
US-Israeli strikes hit a heavy water reactor in central Iran, Iranian media reported on Friday.
“The Khondab Heavy Water Complex was targeted in two stages by aggression from the American and Zionist enemy,” said Fars news agency, citing Hassan Ghamari, an official in the central Markazi province.
Fars and other media said there were no casualties or radiation leak from the site.
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Pjotr Sauer
Intelligence agencies in Europe believe Russia is in the final stages of preparing to supply supply drones to Iran for use in its war with the US and Israel, according to a senior European official.
Russia has already been providing intelligence sharing with Tehran to help it target US forces in the region, the official said, but the upcoming delivery of explosive-laden drones would mark the first evidence of lethal support since the start of the war.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to provide details on the scale of any deliveries, but confirmed an article by the Financial Times that said “western intelligence reports” found Russia was close to completing a phased shipment of drones, medicine and food to Iran.
Iranian and Russian officials began secretly discussing drone deliveries days after Israel and the US attacked Tehran in late February, the news website said, citing officials briefed on the intelligence. It said drone deliveries could be completed by the middle of next week.
Responding to the claim of Moscow sending drones to Iran, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying: “There are a lot of fakes going around right now. One thing is true – we are continuing our dialogue with the Iranian leadership.”
Russia and Iran signed a strategic partnership agreement last year and Moscow has sent more than 13 tonnes of medicine to Iran through Azerbaijan.
Iran would be “well advised” to negotiate with the United States after almost a month of the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic, Germany’s foreign minister said Friday.
“The Iranian regime would be well advised to enter into serious negotiations with the United States now,” Johann Wadephul said, after meeting G7 counterparts in France, including US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
“There are initial indications that such talks should be taking place,” he added, without giving further details.
ShareEU energy ministers to hold extraordinary videocall on Iran war
European Union countries’ energy ministers will hold an extraordinary videocall on Tuesday, on the Iran war’s impact on European energy security of supply, a spokesperson for Cyprus’ EU presidency said on Friday.
Cyprus holds the EU’s rotating presidency and chairs meetings of EU countries.
A senior Iraqi Kurdistan official said the United States is not arming Iranian Kurdish opposition groups exiled in his autonomous region, reiterating his government opposes any involvement by these groups in the Middle East war.
“We have not seen any attempts by the United States, any branch of the United States, to arm Iranian opposition groups in Kurdistan,” deputy prime minister of the autonomous northern region, Qubad Talabani, told AFP in an interview on Thursday.
Regional authorities told the groups it would be “very unwise” for them to take part from Iraqi Kurdistan, he said, adding: “We would not allow that to happen from here”.
Eduardo Porter
From Wall Street to the White House, the dish everyone’s talking about this week is the Persian Taco. It’s what’s served when Trump chickens out in Iran.
In the early hours of Monday morning, witnessing oil prices surge, stock futures plummet and bond yields climb due to his threat to pummel Iran’s civilian power infrastructure, the president hurriedly walked it back, announcing he would put off the bombing because talks with Iran were actually going great. After the bombast and bloodshed, it was time for Taco (Trump Always Chickens Out)
Donald Trump hosts Greek independence day celebration. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA
Read Eduardo Porter’s analysis of the war’s impact on the US economy here:
Updated at 10.24 EDT
Airlines cancel more flights amid US-Israel Iran conflict
Global air travel remains severely disrupted, with many people still unable to fly as planned to destinations after the Iran war forced the closure of major hubs, including Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi.
The low-cost airline Wizz Air has suspended flights to Israel until 29 March, and to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Amman and Jeddah from mainland European destinations until mid-September.
The price of jet fuel has doubled since the start of the war, according to the International Air Transport Association,
United Airlines announced last Friday it would have to cut flights due to the surging cost of fuel.
“The reality is, jet fuel prices have more than doubled in the last three weeks. If prices stayed at this level, it would mean an extra $11bn in annual expense just for jet fuel,” Scott Kirby, the CEO of United, said in a statement. “For perspective, in United’s best year ever, we made less than $5bn.”
The average airfare for most airlines – spanning both domestic and international trips, as well as tickets bought last-minute and in advance – was up compared with the same period last year, according to an analysis at Deutsche Bank.
ShareUS can only confirm about a third of Iran’s missile arsenal destroyed, sources say
Reuters report that the United States can only determine with certainty that it has destroyed about a third of Iran’s vast missile arsenal, according to US intelligence sources.
The status of around another third is less clear but bombings likely damaged, destroyed or buried those missiles in underground tunnels and bunkers, the sources said.
One of the sources said the intelligence was similar for Iran’s drone capability, saying there was some degree of certainty about a third having been destroyed.
The assessment, shows that while most of Iran’s missiles are either destroyed or inaccessible, Tehran still has a significant missile inventory and may be able to recover some buried or damaged missiles once fighting stops.
Donald Trump’s had said on Thursday that Iran had “very few rockets left”.
Updated at 11.00 EDT
Japan to boost coal-fired power as war causes energy turmoil
Japan’s government plans to temporarily lift restrictions on coal-fired power plants as it seeks to ease an energy crunch caused by the Middle East war, AFP reports.
Officials presented the plan at a meeting of a panel of experts, who approved the proposal, the industry ministry said on its website.
“Given the current situation in the Middle East affecting fuel prices, we believe that uncertainty regarding future LNG procurement is increasing,” an industry ministry official said at the meeting, which was broadcast online.
“We think it will be necessary, by increasing the operation of coal-fired power plants, to… ensure the reliability of stable supply,” he said.
Power suppliers have previously been required to keep the operating rate of coal-fired thermal power stations that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide at or below 50 percent.
But the government now intends to allow the full operation of older, less efficient coal-fired plants, for a year from the new fiscal year starting April, according to the plan presented at the meeting.
It comes after Vietnam’s (4.16) trade ministry said this morning it had temporarily waived an environmental tax on fuel to cut soaring prices by more than a quarter.
Isogo Thermal Power Station, a coal-fired power plant operated by J-POWER. Photograph: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty ImagesShare
William Christou
Rania Jaber told her husband that if God blessed them with a daughter, she would be named Narjis, Arabic for daffodil. After having twin boys, Jaber wanted a little girl she could dress up.
Jaber got her girl and made good on her promise: Narjis was born in 2020. Her mother was delighted to find that just like her namesake flower, her daughter’s hair was light. Narjis seemed “wise beyond her years”, Jaber said, recalling how her daughter would comfort her whenever she would cry.
As Jaber rushed to pack her daughter and two sons into the car on 2 March as she fled Israeli bombs, Narjis comforted her once again. “Mama, you’re my life. Don’t cry, I love you so much,” Narjis told her mother as stress began to overwhelm her.
It was one of the last things Jaber remembers her daughter saying. A few hours later, Israel dropped a bomb on their family home in Maifadoun, south Lebanon, killing six-year-old Narjis and her aunt.
“I keep replaying it. How our lives were torn apart. She was like a blossom. This girl … Oh my heart is breaking. I still can’t believe my daughter is gone,” Jaber said through sobs. The 34-year-old mother and her two 10-year-old sons, Abbas and Ali, were trapped under the rubble after the airstrike but survived with mild injuries.
Jaber has no shortage of pictures of her daughter: Narjis always has a wide smile, wearing the many dresses her parents bought for her, posing in her classroom with a papier-mache apple bearing a capital “A” held proudly in her hands. “She wanted to be a doctor,” Jaber said.
ShareIran guards say strait of Hormuz ‘closed’ to hostile shipping
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that they had turned back three ships trying to transit the strait of Hormuz, adding the route was closed to vessels travelling to and from ports linked to its “enemies”.
“This morning, following the lies of the corrupt US president claiming that the strait of Hormuz was open, three container ships of different nationalities… were turned back after a warning from the IRGC Navy,” the Guards said on their Sepah News website.
“The movement of any vessel ‘to and from’ ports of origin belonging to allies and supporters of the Zionist-American enemies, to any destination and through any corridor, is prohibited,” it added.