“Mr Hegseth! Our leaders have been, and still are, among the people. But your leaders? On Epstein’s island!” the top Iranian official wrote on X, referring to the late sex offender who had close ties to rich and powerful people in the US.
France and Italy have opened talks with Iran seeking to negotiate a deal to guarantee safe passage for their ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people briefed on the efforts.
The US has deployed a large number of aircraft into the Middle East to take part in operations against Iran and the incident highlights the risk of not just operations, but of refueling aircraft in the air.
The KC-135, built by Boeing in the 1950s and early 1960s, has served as the backbone of the US military's air refueling fleet and is critical to allowing aircraft to carry out missions without having to land.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed factions, claimed responsibility for downing the US military refueling aircraft.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that as many as 150 US troops have been wounded in the US-Israeli war on Iran. News of the crash comes the same day two US sailors were injured after the USS Gerald Ford suffered a non-combat-related fire on board.
The first seven US troops were killed when a drone slammed into a US military facility in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait.
President Donald Trump and other senior officials have warned the Iran conflict will result in more US military deaths as Tehran retaliates against US and Israeli strikes.
Earlier, US War Secretary Pete Hegseth said the US military would bombard Iran more heavily on Friday than any other day so far in the war. "In fact, today will be yet again, the highest volume of strikes that America has put over the skies of Iran and Tehran," he told a press conference.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said the US was going to be hitting Iran "very hard over the next week", shortly after issuing a partial 30-day waiver for purchases of sanctioned Russian oil, hoping to ease prices fuelled by the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Prices have been whipsawing on Trump's comments about the likely duration of the war, which has prompted Iran to attack vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of the world's oil.
Trump has previously said the war is "complete", and also promised to guarantee the safety of vessels in the Strait. In a Fox News interview aired on Friday, Trump said the US would escort shipping there "if we needed to".
Benchmark Brent crude eased about 1% to around $99.50 in European trading, still up almost 40% since the start of the war, with European and Asian shares under pressure.
In the interview, he further said the US would escort vessels through the Strait of Hormuz if needed.
Asked about helping oil tankers pass through the key shipping strait, Trump said: "We would do it if we needed to. But, you know, hopefully things are going to go very well. We're going to see what happens." He gave no other details.
On Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Sky News in an interview that the US Navy, perhaps with an international coalition, will escort vessels through the Strait of Hormuz when it is militarily possible "My belief, that as soon as it is militarily possible, the US Navy, perhaps with an international coalition, will be escorting vessels through," Bessent said.
The plan to escort ships would go ahead as soon as the US has "complete control of the skies and ... (Iran's) rebuilding capabilities for the missiles completely degraded," he said.
US and Israeli strikes on Iran and the subsequent response by Tehran have widened regional tensions and paralyzed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting vital Middle East oil and gas flows and sending energy prices higher.
Raising the stakes for the global economy, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says it will block oil shipments from the Gulf unless the US and Israeli attacks cease. "There are, in fact, tankers coming through now, Iranian tankers, I believe some Chinese flag tankers have come through. So we know that they have not mined the straits," Bessent said.
Trump claimed in G7 call that Iran is "about to surrender," Axios reports
Trump told G7 leaders in a virtual meeting on Wednesday that Iran is "about to surrender," Axios reported on Friday citing three officials from G7 countries briefed on the contents of the call.
According to the report, Trump told allies that he "got rid of a cancer that was threatening us all," while boasting about the results of "Operation Epic Fury" on the G7 call Wednesday morning.
Trump said that "nobody knows who is the leader, so there is no one that can announce surrender," Axios reported.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
Trump on Friday derided Iran's leaders as "deranged scumbags" and said it was his great honor to kill them as the war in the Middle East approached the two-week mark with heavy exchanges of drone and missile strikes across the region
In a late Friday night statement, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it had targeted the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln with missiles and drones, claiming the strike caused “major damage” to the vessel, according to an Al Jazeera post on X.
The Revolutionary Guard added that the aircraft carrier is now “withdrawing toward America” following the alleged attack.
However, the spokesperson for the US Central Command told Al Jazeera that “the Revolutionary Guard's claims of targeting the Lincoln aircraft carrier are false,” denying any damage or operational impact on the vessel
At least one person was killed on Friday in an explosion that went off close to an annual pro-government rally in Tehran marking support for the Palestinian cause, Iran's official IRNA news agency said.
No further details were given but the Israeli army earlier called on people to evacuate two areas in the city centre of Tehran close to the site of the rally, on the 14th day of a war that is engulfing the Middle East.
The Israeli military on Friday warned it would strike two areas in the Iranian capital Tehran, Villa and Moniriyeh, and told residents to evacuate.
"In the coming hours, the IDF will operate in these areas, as it has in recent days across Iran, to strike military infrastructure belonging to the Iranian regime. Dear citizens, for your safety and well-being, we ask that you immediately evacuate the marked area," the army posted on its Persian-language account on X, attaching maps of the affected neighbourhoods.
Earlier on Thursday, new Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued his first comments, read out by a television presenter, vowing to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and calling on neighbouring countries to close US bases on their territory or risk Iran targeting them.
"I assure everyone that we will not neglect avenging the blood of your martyrs," he said. Iranian officials have said he was lightly wounded in initial strikes.
The leaders of Iran, Israel and the United States all voiced defiance and vowed to fight on as the Middle East war approached the two-week mark on Friday, killing thousands of people, disrupting the lives of millions of others and shaking financial markets.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held his first news conference since the US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran started on February 28, taking questions via video-link and issuing a veiled threat to kill Khamenei and defending the military assault.
"I will not detail the actions we are taking. We are creating the optimal conditions for toppling the regime, but I won't deny that I can't tell you with all certainty that the people of Iran will topple the regime - a regime is toppled from the inside," Netanyahu said. "But we can definitely help, and we are helping".
US President Donald Trump weighed in on social media on Friday, saying the US was "totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran". "We have unparalleled firepower, unlimited ammunition, and plenty of time - Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today," Trump said.
The Israel Defense Forces said on Friday its air force struck more than 200 targets in western and central Iran over the past day, including ballistic missile launchers, air defence systems and weapons production sites, as part of its operation dubbed Operation Roar of the Lion.
Overnight, Iran launched a barrage of missiles towards Israel, undermining earlier US and Israeli claims to have knocked out much of Iran's stock of long-range weapons.
Medics in Israel's north said they had taken 58 people to hospitals, most with minor injuries from glass shards.
Debris from a successful interception also caused minor damage to the façade of a building in central Dubai, the emirate's media office said early on Friday, adding that no injuries were reported. The office did not specify the exact location of the incident. And in Saudi Arabia, the defence ministry said two drones were intercepted in the east.
The prospect that one of the most severe disruptions ever to global energy supplies could endure sent oil prices up about 9% to $100 a barrel LCOc1 on Thursday, helping drive down US stocks.
The S&P 500 notched up its biggest three-day percentage drop in a month, and shares in Asia were also under pressure on Friday.
In an effort to stabilise global energy markets, the US on Thursday issued a 30-day licence for countries to buy Russian oil and petroleum products currently stranded at sea.
"The temporary increase in oil prices is a short-term and temporary disruption that will result in a massive benefit to our nation and economy in the long-term," Bessent said in the statement, echoing earlier comments from Trump.
Trump, who has already declared that the US and Israel "won" the war, said the United States stood to make significant money from oil prices driven higher because of supply issues tied to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil normally passes.
"The United States is the largest oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money." Stopping Iran from having nuclear weapons was far more important, he said on social media.
Israel and the US have said Iran needs to be "stopped from having nuclear weapons" for decades now.
Trump's comments angered opposition Democrats, who accused the Republican president of caring too little about the war's impact on average Americans and demanded more information about civilian casualties, particularly a double-tap strike that killed dozens of schoolchildren at an Iranian girls' school.
Trump's administration has not provided a public assessment of the expected cost or duration of the war, which is unpopular with the American public, or a strategy for Iran after the fighting stops. The president and top aides have also given conflicting reasons for starting the fight.
The death toll has risen to more than 2,000 civilians, mostly in Iran. Almost 700 have been killed by Israeli attacks in Lebanon, where Israel has targeted central Beirut and ordered residents out of a swathe of southern Lebanon as they push their offensive against the Hezbollah group.
France's President Emmanuel Macron said one soldier had died and several were wounded during an attack in northern Iraq, hours after an Italian base was also targeted in the area.
Two tankers were set ablaze in the Iraqi port of Basra earlier this week after allegedly being hit by Iranian explosive-laden boats. Other ships have been struck in the Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz, some by Iran after repeated warnings not to approach the straits, and buildings have been struck in cities of other Gulf countries.
Inside Iran, residents said security forces were increasing their presence to instil order through constant US-Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure.
"Security forces are everywhere, more than before. People are afraid to come out, but supermarkets are open," teacher Majan, 35, said by phone from Tehran.
Many Iranians mourned the death of the supreme leader, while other Iranians and the Iranian diaspora in places like New York celebrated the Ayatollah's death and the strikes on Iran. There has been no sign of organised dissent while the country is under attack.
Iran's message is that its strategy now is to impose a prolonged economic shock to force Trump to back off. A spokesperson for Iran's military command said on Wednesday that the world should prepare for oil prices of $200 a barrel.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Thursday he did not expect that to happen, but did not totally rule it out. "I would say unlikely, but we are focused on the military operation and solving a problem," Wright told CNN.