Live! Trump warns Iran: 'Big wave of strikes yet to happen'

Air travel in the UAE is reportedly slowly resuming after several days of disruption linked to the Israel-Iran escalation. Dubai and Abu Dhabi will reportedly restart limited flights this evening.

Flydubai announced it will operate a small number of flights on March 2, urging passengers to update their details and check flight status online before heading to the airport.

Emirates said it will also begin restricted services, prioritizing customers with earlier bookings. The airline stressed that travellers should only go to the airport if they have been directly notified.

All other flights remain suspended until further notice, with Emirates noting that schedules will be adjusted as the situation evolves. The carrier emphasized that passenger and crew safety remains its top priority.

Members of the Muslim community held a funeral prayer for Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei at the lawns of the Aligarh Muslim University Students Union compound in Aligarh, UP, amid tight security, with speakers urging the Indian government to offer condolences to the cleric's family, instead of remaining silent.

The Ghaibaana Namaaz-e-Janazza (funeral prayer in absentia) was attended by several people, including students of the university.

The prayer was preceded by slogans of Shia-Sunni unity and addresses to the gathering, where several speakers asserted that Ayatollah Khamenei, in his death, attained "martyrdom and aroused a wave of sympathy beyond the borders of his own country".

A number of speakers urged the Government of India to offer condolences to the family of the departed cleric, instead of remaining silent.

Addressing the prayer meeting, former president of the AMU Students Union Salman Imtiaz said “Khamenei was an old friend of India, and had stood by India even at the cost of his country’s relationship with Pakistan”.

The prayer meeting was held under tight security arrangements, and the participants were advised to disperse after the meeting instead of taking out any procession.

Indian airlines cancelled more than 300 international flights on Monday as the operational disruptions caused by the West Asia conflict continued for the third day.

Many airspaces in the Middle East region remained closed amid the escalating conflict involving the US, Israel, and Iran.

Around 260 persons from Maharashtra are stranded in West Asia due to airspace closure caused by the Iran war though all are safe, officials have said. Figures are being collected from more places across the state.

Among those stranded in Dubai is Congress’s Jalna Lok Sabha MP Kalyan Kale, who had gone there on Friday, just a day before the joint US-Israel strike in Iran, his brother Jagannath Kale said.

He was scheduled to return via Abu Dhabi on March 3 but is now stuck in Dubai due to flight cancellations, Jagannath Kale said, adding the MP is safe and that there was nothing to worry.

Nine other tourists from Jalna are also stranded in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the two biggest cities and business nerve centres of the United Arab Emirates.

As many as 84 students and four professors from Indira Institute of School of Business in Pimpri Chinchvad in Pune are stuck in Dubai after reaching the Gulf to attend the 'Global Immersion Programme'. Another 10 tourists from Ganesh Peth in Pune are also stranded.

A total of 61 persons from Marathwada in Maharashtra are stuck in Dubai, Bahrain, Qatar and Abu Dhabi due to closure of airspace.

A Thane official said 23 tourists from Shahapur are stranded in Dubai. Plus, 50 persons from Solapur as well as 83 tourists from Kolhapur, who had gone to West Asia through travel firms, are stranded. The figure has been provided by the Tours and Travel Association of Kolhapur district.

A student from Raigad district, who studies at a management college in Dubai International Academic City, as well as a businessman from Dhule are stuck in the region.

Iran's leaders are scrambling to replace Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled the country for 37 years before he was killed in the surprise US and Israeli bombardment on February 28.

It's only the second time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that a new supreme leader is being chosen. The supreme leader has the final say on all major decisions, including war, peace and the country's disputed nuclear programme.

The supreme leader is appointed by an 88-member panel called the Assembly of Experts, who by law are supposed to quickly name a successor. The panel consists of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected after their candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran's constitutional watchdog.

Here are the top contenders.

Mojtaba Khamenei

The son of Khamenei, a mid-level Shiite cleric, is widely considered a potential successor. He has strong ties to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard but has never held office. His selection could prove awkward, as the Islamic Republic has long criticized hereditary rule and cast itself as a more just alternative.

Ayatollah Ali Reza Arafi

Arafi is a member of the provisional government council. The senior Shiite cleric was handpicked by Khamenei to be a member of the Guardian Council in 2019, and three years later he was elected to the Assembly of Experts. He leads a network of seminaries.

Hassan Rouhani

Rouhani, a relative moderate, was president of Iran from 2013 to 2021 and reached the landmark nuclear agreement with the Obama administration that US President Donald Trump scrapped during his first term. Rouhani served on the Assembly of Experts until 2024, when he said he was disqualified from running for reelection. He criticised it as an infringement on Iranians' political participation.

Hassan Khomeini

Khomeini is the most prominent grandson of the founder of Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He is also seen as a relative moderate, but has never held government office. He currently works at his grandfather's mausoleum in Tehran.

Ayatollah Mohammed Mehdi Mirbagheri

Mirbagheri is a senior cleric popular with hard-liners who serves on the Assembly of Experts. He was close to the late Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a fellow hard-liner who wrote that Iran should not deprive itself of the right to produce “special weapons,” a veiled reference to nuclear arms. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mirbagheri denounced the closure of schools as a “conspiracy.” He is currently the head of the Islamic Cultural Center in Qom, the main centre for Islamic teaching in Iran.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday spoke to widening concerns that the US-Israeli strikes in Iran could spiral into a protracted regional conflict by declaring, “This is not Iraq. This is not endless.”

Hegseth, along with US Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of that country's Joint Chiefs of Staff, held the Trump administration's first news briefing since Saturday's strikes.

Hegseth said the operation had a “clear, devastating, decisive mission” to “destroy the missile threat” from Iran, destroy its navy and “no nukes.” “This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change and the world is better off for it,” Hegseth said.

Earlier, US President Donald Trump said a regime change is the "best thing that could happen" to Iran.

Four American troops have been killed in action. Trump on Sunday predicted there would be more US casualties.

Caine on Monday said the US expected to have additional losses.

US officials have not offered any exit plan or offered signs that the conflict would end anytime soon, and the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cast doubt on the future of the Islamic Republic and hurtled the region into broader instability.

In laying out a case for the strikes, Hegseth pointed to the Iranian regime as having started the conflict from its inception, declaring that for 47 years it has "waged a savage, one-sided war against America.” “Their war on Americans has become our retribution against their Ayatolloah and his death cult,” he said.

He did not point to any threat of an imminent nuclear threat from Iran, and he said again that last summer's strikes by the US and Israel “obliterated their nuclear programme to rubble”.

Instead, Hegseth pointed to threats from other weaponry such as ballistic missiles and drones that justified the operation. “Iran was building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for their nuclear blackmail ambitions,” Hegseth said.

He said that during negotiations with US officials leading up to the attack, Iranian officials were “stalling".

Trump, in an interview Sunday with The New York Times, said the assault could last “four to five weeks”.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s wife Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, who was severely injured in the attack that killed him two days ago, has died, Iranian media has reported.