IRAN - The man expected to become Iran’s next supreme leader is unlikely to view the US as anything but an implacable enemy. Donald Trump claims the remnants of the Iranian regime are looking for an olive branch. The expected election of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader suggests otherwise. Khamenei, the second son of the late Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an air strike on Saturday, is a shadowy, hardline conservative figure with deep links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Having reportedly supplied the intelligence to take out one ayatollah Khamenei, the US is unlikely to look favourably on another one rising in his place. And from the potentially new supreme leader’s perspective, the recent bombing campaigns have killed his father, mother, wife and son, while shattering its navy, missile depots and nuclear programme. Given his background, he could hardly have seen the US as anything but an implacable enemy. But the events of recent days will have given a personal edge to that hatred.

USA - US submarine sinks Iranian Navy warship off Sri Lanka with 148 suspected drowned as Iran launches missiles at Turkey as war spreads across globe. 'Yesterday, in the Indian Ocean, an American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters. Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo - a quiet death. The first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War Two,' he said. The warship was returning from a military exercise in India's eastern port of Viskhapatnam at the time of the attack. This sinking comes as war has broken out in the Mideast, after Israel and the United States launched strikes against Iran. It comes days after the US military said it had struck Iran’s largest naval warship following the launch of Trump’s ‘Operation Epic Fury.’ Meanwhile an Iranian missile heading towards Turkey has been destroyed by NATO as violence from the US-Israel war with Iran spreads beyond the Middle East.

USA - Donald Trump's approval rating has fallen to an all-time low as the vast majority of Americans turn on the President over his war in Iran. A new Daily Mail/JL Partners poll found the President's approval now stands at 44 percent, down four points since Friday and marking the lowest rating recorded in Daily Mail tracking to date. The sharp decline comes as Americans grow increasingly uneasy about his spiraling conflict tearing apart the Middle East after six American troops were killed.

UK - Keir Starmer accused Donald Trump of lacking a 'viable, thought-through plan' for the Iran war today as Transatlantic tensions rise. The PM sounded defiance over his refusal to allow UK bases to be used for offensive strikes, insisting he was worried about 'escalation'. Mr Trump condemned the premier as 'disappointing' and 'no Churchill' last night, as the situation became more personal. Sir Keir shot back that letting the US use UK bases to shoot down drones 'is the special relationship in action' but 'hanging on to President Trump's latest words is not'. The comments came as Kemi Badenoch battered Sir Keir at PMQs for failing to protect Britain's personnel in the Middle East, and insisted Labour is splurging on benefits instead of ramping up defence spending. Sir Keir said he wanted to act with 'clarity, with purpose... the protection of UK nationals is our number one priority'. The premier said that when the crisis erupted on Saturday he was not willing to 'join a war unless I was satisfied there was a lawful basis and a viable thought through plan'. He added: 'That remains my position.'

IRAN - Iran has showed off a sprawling underground network of tunnels filled with row after row of drones and rockets, amid fears the US and its allies are burning through expensive weaponry in their war against the regime. Footage released by the Fars News Agency, which is closely linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, shows long lines of missiles and Shahed drones. With a ticking clock playing in the background, the video used dramatic drone footage to show off the extent of their cheap arsenal. As war continues to rage on, there are now fears that the sophisticated weaponry favoured by the US and its allies may be too expensive and too hard to procure for a longer military campaign. And there are fears that Gulf states may soon run out of anti-air defences. A source told the Daily Mail: 'At the current rates the supplies could run out within four days.'

EUROPE - France and Germany dash Ukraine’s hopes of fast-track EU membership. The European Commission presented a proposal for Kyiv to join forces with the bloc at a dinner on Wednesday night organised by the two countries. But ambassadors for Paris and Berlin told their counterparts that Brussels needed to formulate a more “realistic” plan for Ukraine’s accession, diplomatic sources told The Telegraph. Officials in the two capitals, both staunch allies of Ukraine, are opposed to the quick-fire plan because it does not have the full support of member states and could ultimately see Kyiv fall victim to a wider argument over enlargement of the bloc. Ursula von der Leyen, the commission’s president, had hoped to welcome Ukraine into the bloc through a “membership lite” scheme. Her vision for an accelerated pathway offered Kyiv membership without the benefits, such as EU funds or voting rights, which would come at a later date.

USA - White House is scrambling to clarify its justifications for war to the president’s MAGA base. Donald Trump needed time to sell his war on Iran to the American people. The isolationist MAGA base that elected Mr Trump on his promise to stay out of foreign wars would need to be persuaded through consistent and effective messaging. This would take, the White House wagered, until April or late March at the earliest. Enter Benjamin Netanyahu, with high-level intelligence pinpointing a building in Tehran that, if struck at the right time, would see Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and tens of other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders eliminated.

IRAN - Europe may face the wrath of Iranian missiles thanks to Trump's targeted decapitation of Iran's military, an expert has warned. Dr Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at RUSI, warned Iran's most destructive weapons could soon end up under the control of inexperienced officers if America and Israel continue to pick off the country's military elite.

IRAN - When you kill or otherwise dispose of a state leader – especially in dictatorships, which, unlike democracies, are built around people not institutions – you expect the regime to follow a familiar pattern: paralysis, factional struggle and possibly collapse. But the Islamic Republic is different. Its ideological foundations are neither institutional nor personal, but theological. And its theology, Twelver Shiism, holds that death – especially violent death – is not an end, but part of a sacred struggle (Shahadat) that never truly ends.

USA - Donald Trump has just made the most catastrophically ill-prepared military decision in modern American history — and the petrol pump is going to make sure every voter knows it. Here is the breathtaking reality. The man who promised to fill the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve “right to the top” launched a full-scale war in the world’s most energy-critical corridor while that same reserve sat at 415 million barrels — nearly 100 million barrels below the government’s own minimum “safe” peacetime level. He picked a fight in a burning building without checking whether the fire exits were unlocked. The consequences are now cascading through global energy markets at terrifying speed.