State Department tells Americans worldwide to 'exercise increased caution'

National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent resigned Tuesday over his opposition to the war in Iran, becoming the highest-profile administration official to step down publicly over the conflict.

In a resignation letter posted publicly on social media, Kent wrote that Iran posed “no imminent threat to our nation” and said he could not “in good conscience” support the war. The National Counterterrorism Center is housed within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ABC News has reached out to ODNI for comment.

Kent, who is an Oregon native, is a combat veteran who served over 20 years in the U.S. Army and completed 11 combat deployments in the Middle East. Kent led the U.S. counterterrorism and counternarcotics enterprise and he served as the principal counterterrorism adviser to the president, according to ODNI.

Kent also invoked a deeply personal loss in explaining his decision. He is a Gold Star husband whose late wife, Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, was killed in action during a suicide bombing while serving in Syria in 2019.

"I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives," Kent wrote in his resignation letter.

A tanker at anchor off the coast of the United Arab Emirates was struck on Tuesday by "falling debris" rather than a projectile, as had previously been thought, the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Centre said in an updated advisory.

The vessel, which has not been publicly identified, was "subjected to falling debris from interceptions in the vicinity of the vessel," UKMTO said.

There was "minor" damage to the vessel and the crew were reported as safe, the organization said.

-ABC News' Zoe Magee

The Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday that Ali Larijani, the influential Iranian security official who’d been a key representative of former Supreme Leader Ali Khomenei, was killed in a "precise" Israeli aerial strike.

The IDF statement followed the Israeli defense minister's announcement of the death.

"Following the elimination of Khamenei, Larijani consolidated his status as the de facto leader of the Iranian regime and led the combat efforts against the State of Israel and countries across the region," the IDF said in a statement.

Describing him as the "de facto leader" of the Iranian regime, the IDF said that Larijani was killed by an Israeli Air Force strike near Tehran.

Israel described Larijani’s death as a "further blow" to the Iranian leadership’s abilities to manage the war against the U.S. and Israel.

The head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, was killed in an overnight attack on Iran, along with the paramilitary leader Gholamreza Soleimani, the Israeli minister of defense said on Tuesday.

"Larijani and the Basij commander were eliminated last night and have joined Khamenei, the head of the annihilation program, along with all those eliminated from the axis of evil in the depths of hell," Israel Katz, the minister, said in a statement.

"The Prime Minister and I have instructed the IDF to continue pursuing the leadership of the terror and oppression regime in Iran, and to repeatedly cut off the head of the octopus and prevent it from regrowing," he said.

Larijani was an influential representative of Iran’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"The IDF continues to operate in Iran with great intensity, targeting regime assets, suppressing missile-launch capabilities, and destroying key strategic infrastructure across all domains, setting Iran back decades," Katz said.

-ABC News' Somayeh Malekian