Azerbaijan summons Iran ambassador after strike injures two in Nakhchivan

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Iran carried out a “terror act” against Azerbaijan by launching drones at the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and ordered the armed forces to prepare response measures.

Speaking at a Security Council meeting he chaired, Aliyev said Iranian drones targeted civilian sites including Nakhchivan International Airport, its terminal building and a school.

“A terror act has been committed against the territory of Azerbaijan and against the Azerbaijani state,” he said, adding that Iran must provide an explanation and apologize, and that those responsible must face criminal liability.

Aliyev said Azerbaijan would not take part in any operations against Iran and had previously assured Tehran that its territory would not be used against neighboring states. He added that Azerbaijan’s armed forces had been put on high alert and that diplomatic steps, including summoning Iran’s ambassador, were under way.

Israel’s military said it had completed a 12th wave of strikes in Tehran, targeting security and military sites linked to Iran’s authorities.

In a statement posted by its Farsi-language account, the military said strikes in Alborz province hit the headquarters of a special unit responsible for overseeing police forces and commanding units in the province.

It said that in other areas of Tehran it targeted sites belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij, as well as a central headquarters of internal security forces.

The military added that dozens of other headquarters and sites used for storing and producing various types of weapons were also struck.

Britain’s Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer said there are indications the crisis involving Iran could last weeks or possibly months.

“The situation is evolving, but there are indications that this is a crisis, not of days, but of weeks and possibly months,” Falconer told parliament.

US Central Command said on Thursday that rumors circulating on social media claiming a US F-15E fighter jet crashed in Iran early Wednesday were baseless and not true.

Lufthansa has extended the suspension of flights to and from Dubai and Abu Dhabi through Tuesday, and to and from Tehran until May 1 due to the situation in the Middle East, the airline group said on Thursday.

“The Lufthansa Group continuously monitors and assesses the security situation in the Middle East and is in close contact with the authorities,” it said in a statement.

Flights to and from Larnaca, Tel Aviv, Beirut, Amman and Iraq’s Erbil are also suspended until later dates in March.

An Iranian remote-controlled boat laden with explosives was used to target and damage the Bahamas-flagged crude oil vessel Sonangol Namibe anchored in Iraqi waters, two Iraqi port security sources told Reuters.

The small boat exploded after hitting the vessel and marked the first recorded attack inside Iraq’s exclusive economic zone, the sources said, describing it as an escalation of threats to commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf.

The Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday they had hit a US vessel in the northern part of the Persian Gulf and that it was on fire.

Iran’s armed forces denied launching a drone toward Azerbaijan and said Tehran respects the sovereignty of all countries, especially neighboring and Muslim states.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran, while respecting the sovereignty of all countries, especially Muslim and neighboring countries, denies the launch of any drone by its armed forces toward the Republic of Azerbaijan,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces said in a statement.

An oil vessel suffered an explosion off the coast of Iraq, damaging part of the ship and signaling widening risks to shipping deeper into the Persian Gulf, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

The Sonangol Namibe was approached by a small boat near Khor Al Zubair and its crew later heard a loud bang, Bloomberg cited Sonangol Marine Services as saying. The company said the hull appeared to have been breached and that the vessel was losing water from a ballast tank used for stability.

There were no reports of pollution and no cargo was on board, easing earlier concerns about a spill. A UK naval group had earlier reported oil in the water nearby.

Iran’s IRIB News reported that an oil vessel was struck early on Thursday by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy but did not identify the ship, Bloomberg said.

The incident marks one of the farthest points north in the Persian Gulf where vessels have been hit since the US and Israel began bombing Iran over the weekend, and follows other strikes including one on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday.

The death toll from US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran has reached 1,230, said the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs without distinguishing between military and civilian deaths.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said a recent missile incident in Turkey was serious and showed the alliance remains vigilant, but added that Article 5 was not in order.

Rutte told Reuters NATO supports US President Donald Trump for taking out Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities and stressed that Iran must no longer pose a threat.

He said it was difficult to assess how the situation in Iran would end, but added that his sense was the US “knows what it is doing.”