Top US security official resigns over Iran conflict

U.S. National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent announced on Tuesday his resignation over his country's military strikes on Iran.

Kent said in a post on social media platform X that he "cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran."

"Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby," the official said.

Kent, who had been head of the National Counterterrorism Center for less than eight months, is the highest-level official to resign from his position over U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to launch military strikes on Iran.

In his resignation letter to Trump, Kent said that early in this administration, "high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran."

He called on Trump to stop U.S. military operations in Iran.

Germany's economic sentiment index for March fell precipitously to minus 0.5, from 58.3 in February, according to data of the Leibniz Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) published on Tuesday.

The sentiment has been severely impacted by the escalating conflict in the Middle East and the resulting surging energy prices, said the research institute.

Almost all economic sectors in Germany have yet to show any improvement this month, and energy-intensive industries, such as the chemical industry and the pharmaceutical industry, have been hit particularly hard.

ZEW President Achim Wambach warned that the rising inflation heightens the risk of a slowdown in Germany's economic recovery.