TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran held its first military exercise since the end of its 12-day war with Israel, state television reported Thursday, with navy vessels launching missiles at targets at sea in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean.
While such drills are routine in the Islamic Republic, the “Sustainable Power 1404" exercise comes as authorities in Iran are trying to project strength in the wake of a war that saw Israel destroy air defense systems and bomb nuclear facilities and other sites.
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This picture released by the official website of the Iranian Army on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, shows a part of Iranian navy drill in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. (Masoud Nazari Mehrabi/Iranian Army via AP)
In this picture released by the official website of the Iranian Army on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, a missile is fired from a vessel during Iranian navy drill in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. (Masoud Nazari Mehrabi/Iranian Army via AP)
In this picture released by the official website of the Iranian Army on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, a missile is fired from a vessel during Iranian navy drill in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. (Masoud Nazari Mehrabi/Iranian Army via AP)
In this picture released by the official website of the Iranian Army on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, a missile is fired from a vessel during Iranian navy drill in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. (Masoud Nazari Mehrabi/Iranian Army via AP)
The state TV report said the frigate IRIS Sabalan and a smaller vessel, the IRIS Ganaveh, launched Nasir and Qadir cruise missiles at targets in the sea, striking them. Coastal batteries also opened fire as part of the exercise.
Iran's navy, estimated to have some 18,000 personnel, apparently avoided any major attack during the June war.
The navy, based out of the port city of Bandar Abbas, patrols the Gulf of Oman, the Indian Ocean and the Caspian Sea, and broadly leaves the Persian Gulf and its narrow mouth, the Strait of Hormuz, to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
The Guard's naval forces are known for seizures of Western vessels during the breakdown of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, as well as closely shadowing passing U.S. Navy vessels coming into the region.
Since the end of the war, Iran has increasingly insisted that it is ready to counter any future Israeli attack.
Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh said that the country has equipped its forces with new missile, in remarks reported Wednesday by the state-run IRNA news agency. "In response to any potential enemy adventurism, our forces are prepared to use these new missiles effectively.”
Meanwhile, Iran has suspended its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been monitoring its nuclear sites as Tehran enriched uranium to near weapons-grade levels amid the tensions.
France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the European parties to Iran's nuclear deal, have warned that if Tehran doesn't reach a “satisfactory solution” to its dispute with the IAEA by Aug. 31, they will trigger a “snapback” reimposition of all United Nations sanctions on it previously lifted by the accord.
While already stung by American sanctions since 2018, analysts warn that renewed U.N. sanctions could further weaken the country's ailing economy.
This picture released by the official website of the Iranian Army on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, shows a part of Iranian navy drill in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. (Masoud Nazari Mehrabi/Iranian Army via AP)
In this picture released by the official website of the Iranian Army on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, a missile is fired from a vessel during Iranian navy drill in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. (Masoud Nazari Mehrabi/Iranian Army via AP)
In this picture released by the official website of the Iranian Army on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, a missile is fired from a vessel during Iranian navy drill in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. (Masoud Nazari Mehrabi/Iranian Army via AP)
In this picture released by the official website of the Iranian Army on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, a missile is fired from a vessel during Iranian navy drill in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. (Masoud Nazari Mehrabi/Iranian Army via AP)
Iran rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal and said it wants a permanent end to the war as U.S. President Donald Trump's ultimatum to make a deal ticked closer with an expanded threat of strikes against the Islamic Republic to include all power plants and bridges.
Trump said Monday he is “not at all” concerned about committing possible war crimes as he again threatened to destroy Iranian infrastructure if Tehran does not meet his Tuesday 8 p.m. EST deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned the U.S. that attacking civilian infrastructure is banned under international law, his spokesperson said Monday.
Israel carried out a new wave of attacks on Iran early Tuesday, while Iran responded with missile fire against Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors.
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but the government has not updated the toll for days.
In Lebanon, more than 1,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.
In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
Here is the latest:
Airstrikes pounded sites across Iran’s capital, Tehran, on Monday, including residential areas.
Strikes also were reported in Qom, the Shiite seminary city to the south of Tehran.
Residential strikes in the past have targeted Iranian government and security officials.
Areas around Parchin, a military base associated with Iran’s ballistic missile program, and points south of downtown Tehran also were struck.
The King Fahd Causeway, a key bridge linking Saudi Arabia and the island of Bahrain, reopened Tuesday morning after closing for hours over possible threats from Iran.
The King Fahd Causeway Authority made the announcement in a post on X, saying the only route by road between Bahrain and the Arabian Peninsula reopened.
Bahrain’s airport has been closed over the Iranian attacks for weeks.
The hourslong closure came after a ballistic missile attack from Iran targeted Saudi Arabia and may have done damage to energy infrastructure there.
The kingdom has not elaborated on damage from that attack.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said attacks targeting civilian and energy infrastructure “are barred by the rules of war, international law” and would surely trigger reprisals from Iran.
He spoke ahead of the Tuesday evening deadline for possible strikes against Iran set by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“In the framework of the war in Iran, they would without doubt trigger a new phase of escalation, of reprisals, that would drag the region and the world economy into a vicious circle that would be very worrying and, most of all, very damaging to our own interests,” the minister said Tuesday morning on France Info television.
“We’re already seeing a surge of fuel prices. If energy facilities in Iran were struck, we can expect reprisals from the Iranian regime that would further worsen an already worrying situation,” he said.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar spoke early Tuesday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty about the latest regional developments in the face of an approaching deadline for the opening of the Strait of Hormuz set by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the leaders “underscored the need for de-escalation and dialogue” and agreed to remain closely engaged as the situation evolves.
Pakistan, with the support of regional countries, has been engaged in diplomatic efforts to bring the U.S. and Iran to the negotiating table.
Abdelatty also spoke with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iraqi Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein.
The calls included “an assessment of the rapidly evolving situation and the efforts ... to reach understandings between the U.S. and Iran to achieve de-escalation and reduce tensions,” the Egyptian foreign ministry said.
The United Nations health agency has suspended evacuations from the Gaza Strip through the Rafah Crossing with Egypt after the death of one of its contractors.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a social media post that the contractor was killed Monday in what he described as a “security incident.”
Two WHO staffers also were wounded in the incident, he said without elaborating further details.
The incident is being investigated and the evacuations of patients and wounded people will be halted until further notice, Tedros said.
The Rafah Crossing was reopened in February after long delays in a key but mostly symbolic step in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.
Iran has reported fatalities from airstrikes overnight into Tuesday.
At least nine people were killed in the city of Shahriar, west of the capital, Tehran, Iranian media reported.
In the city of Pardis, east of Tehran, at least six people were killed in a strike and recovered from buildings, Iranian media reported.
A Revolutionary Guard general in Iran has urged parents to “send your kids to man checkpoints.”
Gen. Hossein Yekta, previously identified as leading plainclothes units of the all-volunteer Basij force, made the comments on an Iranian state television channel.
“Moms, dads, take your kids hands and go out on streets,” he said. “Do you want your kid to become a real man? Let him feel like a hero standing right at the heart of the battlefield. Moms, dads, at night send your kids to man checkpoints. They become men!”
Basij checkpoints have been repeatedly targeted in airstrikes.
The Basij has been accepting children as young as 12 to man checkpoints. Amnesty International has warned some even carry firearms, calling their recruitment a war crime.
During nationwide protests in January, Yekta warned parents to keep their children home or they would be shot.
An adviser to Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates, says they have lost trust in the Iranian government after its attacks on Arab neighbors.
“We are facing a perfidious regime that cannot be trusted,” Anwar Gargash wrote in a social media post Tuesday, adding that his country had sought to avoid the war.
He also claimed the UAE’s position toward Iran’s attacks in the Gulf Arab countries is appreciated across the region.
Iranian state television on Tuesday claimed 14 million people had volunteered to fight for the country if there is a ground invasion by the United States and Israel.
The claim by state TV, which included no other information, doubles an April 2 claim by Iranian Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf that 7 million had volunteered.
Iran is home to some 90 million people. Iran had conducted a bloody crackdown on nationwide demonstrations in January that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands detained.
State media and text message campaigns have urged people to volunteer. The government also has called on retired soldiers to express their interest in fighting, while the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force has begun accepting children as young as 12 into its ranks.
After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, for instance, called for a 20-million Basij force.
Iranian media reported Tuesday that a synagogue in the capital, Tehran, was damaged in an airstrike.
They identified the house of worship as the Rafi Niya Synagogue.
Video from the site showed rescuers moving around and what looked like a book of Hebrew scripture in the rubble.
Iran has a small Jewish population still living in the country. Many fled during the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Likely signaling a new target for their airstrikes, the Israeli military warned Iranians in Farsi on Tuesday to avoid taking trains until at least 9 p.m. local time.
“Your presence puts your life at risk,” the warning posted on X read.
Iran has shut off access to the internet for weeks, making it difficult for the average Iranians to see these warnings. However, Farsi-language satellite news networks abroad report them, allowing the information to make its way back into the Islamic Republic.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is dispatching his chief of staff as a special envoy to Kazakhstan, Oman and Saudi Arabia in a diplomatic push to secure more fuel and mitigate the energy crunch caused by the war in the Middle East.
Kang Hoon-sik said he will depart Tuesday evening, with the visits aimed at securing additional sources of crude oil and naphtha, a key petroleum product used in plastics manufacturing.
South Korea last month reached an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to receive 24 million barrels of crude and initial shipments have arrived in recent weeks.
More than 60% of crude and 50% of naphtha supplies imported by South Korea last year passed through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that is now largely blocked by Iran as it seeks to exert leverage against the U.S. and Israel.
The King Fahd Causeway, a key bridge linking Saudi Arabia to the island kingdom of Bahrain, closed early Tuesday over threats from Iranian attacks.
The King Fahd Causeway Authority made the announcement on X.
Vehicle movements had been “suspended as a precautionary measure” over Iranian attacks targeting Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, the authority said.
The 25-kilometer (15.5-mile) bridge is the only connection by road for Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, to the Arabian Peninsula.
While there has been no formal threat against the King Fahd Causeway, some hard-liners within Iran have increasingly identified it as a possible target.
That risk likely would grow if Trump carries out his threatened strikes against bridges in Iran.
Saudi Arabia said early Tuesday that seven ballistic missiles from Iran targeted the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province, with “debris from the missiles” crashing into the ground near energy facilities.
The brief statement from Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi military, did not elaborate on the extent of the damage on the ground, though he said an “assessment is underway.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what energies facilities had been impacted.
A man inspects the damage to cars and an apartment building struck by an Iranian missile in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
People drive their motorbikes past a billboard that shows a graphic depicting Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
An excavator works removing the rubble as people walk at the site of Sunday's Israeli strike on a building in Beirut's Jnah neighborhood, Lebanon, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
President Donald Trump departs after speaking with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Displaced people wait to receive donated food beside the tents they use as shelters after fleeing Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
