COLOGNE, Germany (AP) — Julian Brandt is to leave Borussia Dortmund at the end of the season.
Dortmund managing director Lars Ricken told broadcaster Sky on Saturday that the club and player had agreed not to extend Brandt’s contract, which expires at the end of the season.
Ricken was speaking after Brandt set up Maximilian Beier’s goal in Dortmund’s nervy 2-1 win at Cologne in the Bundesliga.
“There have already been a few reports, and it’s simply that there were open talks and everyone agreed that the expiring contract wouldn’t be extended,” Ricken said. “He played a few hundred games for Borussia Dortmund. I think we can only be grateful to him for playing with us for seven years. He was sometimes criticized, but even today with his assist, I loved his style.”
Brandt, who joined the team from Bayer Leverkusen in 2019, will be 30 years old on May 2. Altogether he scored 56 goals in 298 games for Dortmund.
“We can reorient ourselves a bit,” Ricken said. “So, it can be an opportunity for both sides, but it was OK for both of us. We ultimately reached an agreement, and I think we’re parting with a great deal of respect. But as I said, for both of us it’s another opportunity.”
Brandt played 48 games for Germany, but none since a Nations League encounter with Hungary in November 2024.
Ricken said the decision would have no influence on whether Germany defender Nico Schlotterbeck stays with the club. Schlotterbeck’s contract expires next year and it’s unclear if he will stay amid reported interest from Real Madrid and Liverpool.
Ricken said Dortmund will offer team captain Emre Can a contract extension. The defender is out for the rest of the season with a torn ACL in his left knee.
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Cologne's Youssoupha Niang, right, and Dortmund's Julian Brandt fight for the ball during a German Bundesliga soccer match between 1.FC Koeln and Borussia Dortmund in Cologne, Germany, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Federico Gambarini/dpa via AP)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran named the hard-line Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his late father as supreme leader on Monday, signaling no letup in the war launched by the United States and Israel. Oil prices surged as Iran attacked regional energy infrastructure and the U.S. and Israel bombed targets across Iran.
With Iran’s theocracy under assault for more than a week, the country’s Assembly of Experts chose the secretive, 56-year-old cleric with close ties to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as the new supreme leader. The Guard has been firing missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf Arab states since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had ruled Iran for 37 years, was killed during the war’s opening salvo.
The appointment marked a new sign of defiance by Iran’s embattled leadership after more than a week of heavy U.S. and Israeli bombardment, suggesting that Tehran is not close to giving up on what it considers a fight for the country's existence.
World markets plummeted following the news, and Brent crude oil, the international standard, surged to nearly $120 a barrel on Monday, about 65% higher than when the war started, before retreating.
Iran's attacks in the Strait of Hormuz have also all but stopped tankers from using the key shipping lane through which a fifth of the world's oil is carried. Fire broke out at an oil facility that Iran attacked in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain's only oil refinery was apparently also hit, and Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted several drones attacking its Shaybah oil field.
In Israel, sirens blared multiple times on Monday as Iran’s drones and missiles were unrelenting. A man was killed in central Israel in a missile strike, the first such death in Israel in a week, and a woman was wounded.
Israel said it struck the Iranian city of Isfahan, hitting command centers for the Revolutionary Guard and its volunteer Basij force, as well as a rocket engine production facility and missile launch sites. There was no immediate confirmation from Iran.
The younger Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since the war started, was long considered a potential successor — even before the Israeli strike killed his father. His wife, Zahra Haddad Adel, was killed in the same Israeli strike that killed the 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Political figures within Iran have criticized handing over the supreme leader's title based on heredity, comparing it to the monarchy overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But top clerics in the Assembly of Experts apparently voted for continuity.
Khamenei, who is seen as even more hard-line than his late father, will now be in charge of Iran's armed forces and any decision about Tehran's nuclear program.
While Iran's key nuclear sites are in tatters after the U.S. bombed them during the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June, it still has highly enriched uranium that's a technical step away from weapons-grade levels. Khamenei could choose to do what his father never did — build a nuclear bomb.
Israel has already described him as a potential target, while U.S. President Donald Trump has called him “unacceptable” and dismissed him as a “lightweight.”
Both the Revolutionary Guard and the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah issued statements in support of Khamenei.
Top Iranian security official Ali Larijani, speaking to Iranian state television, praised the Assembly of Experts for “courageously” convening even as airstrikes continued in Tehran. He said the younger Khamenei had been trained by his father and “can handle this situation.”
Saudi Arabia lashed out at Iran following a thwarted drone attack on its massive Shaybah oil field, saying Tehran would be the “biggest loser” if it continues to attack Arab states.
In the UAE, authorities said two people were wounded by shrapnel from the interception of Iranian missiles over the capital, Abu Dhabi.
Iran also attacked Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, where it hit a residential area, wounding 32 people, including several children, according to authorities. Another attack appeared to have started a fire at Bahrain's only oil refinery, sending thick plumes of smoke into the air.
Bahrain has also accused Iran of damaging one of its desalination plants, though its electricity and water authority said supplies remained online. Desalination plants supply water to millions of residents in the region, raising new fears of catastrophic risks in parched desert nations.
On Monday, Bahrain's state oil company declared force majeure for its oil shipments, the state-run Bahrain News Agency reported, a legal maneuver releasing a company of its contractual obligations because of extraordinary circumstances. It insisted that local demand could still be met.
In Iraq, air defenses downed a drone as it attacked a U.S. military compound inside the Baghdad International Airport, a security source told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. No injuries or damage were reported. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, but Iran-backed militias have previously targeted the base.
Elsewhere, the U.S. military said a service member died of injuries from an Iranian attack on troops in Saudi Arabia on March 1. Seven U.S. soldiers have now been killed.
The U.S. State Department early Monday ordered nonessential personnel and families of all staff to leave Saudi Arabia following the escalation in attacks.
Eight other U.S. diplomatic missions have ordered all but key staff to leave: Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the consulates in Karachi, Pakistan, and Adana, Turkey.
Smoke billowed over Beirut after Israel carried out airstrikes on its southern suburbs Monday.
Ahead of the strikes, the Israeli army said it would operate against targets associated with the Hezbollah-linked financial institution al-Qard Al-Hasan — which Israel said finances the militant group — and repeated its warning to residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs to flee.
The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, at least 397 in Lebanon and 11 in Israel, according to officials. Another person died in Israel of an asthma attack on her way to a shelter. Israel reported its first soldier deaths on Sunday, saying two were killed in southern Lebanon, where it is fighting Hezbollah.
Rising reported from Bangkok and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press journalists Sam Metz in Ramallah, West Bank; Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut; Aamer Madhani in Doral, Florida, and Qassem Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed reporting.
A man carries shoes from his destroyed house that was hit by Israeli airstrikes hit several houses in Sir al-Gharbiyeh village south Lebanon, Sunday, March, 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Residents look on and take pictures as flames and smoke rise from an oil storage facility struck as attacks hit the city during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Alireza Sotakbar/ISNA via AP)
Two women from the Iranian Red Crescent Society stand as a thick plume of smoke from a U.S.-Israeli strike on an oil storage facility late Saturday rises in the sky in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
This image taken from video provided by Iran state TV shows Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran's slain supreme leader, who has been named as the Islamic Republic's next ruler, authorities announced Monday, March 9, 2026. (Iran state TV via AP)
