State Department tells Americans worldwide to 'exercise increased caution'
The war entered its fourth week on Saturday.
President Donald Trump announced "major combat operations" against Iran on Feb. 28, with massive joint U.S.-Israel strikes attack targeting military and government sites, officials said.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was among those killed in Tehran on the first day of strikes and his son Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen to succeed him. Iran is responding with missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, regional U.S. bases and multiple Gulf nations. Iran is also attempting to block some shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Israel is also intensifying its long-running strike campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
Watch special coverage on Nightline, "War with Iran," each night on ABC and streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
Key Headlines
- Strait of Hormuz 'is not closed,' Iranian foreign minister says
- Iran says Strait of Hormuz open to all except 'enemies,' state media, Iranian president say
- 'Iran endangers the entire world,' Netanyahu says
- Iran warns of retaliatory strikes if US attacks power plants, state media says
- Trump threatens to 'hit and obliterate' Iranian power plants if Strait of Hormuz not opened in 48 hours
Trump calls $200B Department of Defense request 'small price to pay'
Asked about the Department of Defense’s $200 billion request to the White House on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said the money is intended for military feats beyond the war in Iran and argued that the administration is being “very judicious" with the request.
Trump called it a “small price to pay to make sure we stay tippy top.”
The Congressional Research Service calculated the U.S. spent $815 billion in direct costs for the war in Iraq through 2014, after more than a decade of military operations there. This war has lasted less than three weeks.
Earlier this month, Pentagon officials told a group of senators in a closed door briefing that the war in Iran cost at least $11.3 billion dollars in its first six days.
-ABC News' Selina Wang, Anne Flaherty and Isabella Murray
US expedites over $16B in arms sales to Middle East countries
The U.S. State Department has green lit and fast-tracked more than $16 billion dollars’ worth of arms sales to the UAE, Jordan and Kuwait, according to the government.
The UAE has been cleared to purchase 10 Site- Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat Systems, which are used to detect, track and neutralize hostile drones; long-range discrimination radar integrated with Terminal High Altitude Area Defense for missile defense; F-16 munitions and upgrades; and 400 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles. The estimated cost for these sales is just under $8.5 billion, according to the department.
Kuwait is seeking to buy Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor Radars for an estimated cost of $8 billion, while Jordan is looking to make a smaller purchase of aircraft and munitions support and related equipment for an estimated cost of $70.5 million, according to the department.
All sales are being fast-tracked due to an emergency declaration made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, waiving congressional review requirements, according to the department.
The UAE is a designated “major defense partner” of the U.S., and at the beginning of this year, it was the 11th largest U.S. defense customer by value. Kuwait, a major non-NATO ally, has also purchased numerous large arms packages from the U.S. in recent years, according to the department.
'War needs to stop immediately,' Qatar PM says
Qatar's Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani called for an immediate end to the war during a press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
"Everyone knows who benefits from this war and from dragging the region into this conflict. Unfortunately, what is happening now is in service of these agendas," he said.
Qatar reserves the "right to respond to this attack through all available legal means and for these attacks there will be a cost according to international law," he said.
Qatar ordered Iranian embassy officials to leave the country on Wednesday over the repeated targeting of its territory after Iran struck the world's largest liquified natural gas terminal in Qatar.
US might lift sanctions on Iranian oil already at sea, Bessent says
In the latest effort to ease spiking oil prices, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the U.S. might lift sanctions on Iranian oil that's already out at sea.
"In the coming days, we may unsanction the Iranian oil that's on the water. It's about 140 million barrels," Bessent said in an interview Thursday on Fox Business.
This would be a major reversal in U.S. policy, which has sanctioned Iranian oil for decades. And, in the middle of the war, it would mean Iran stands to make more money by selling its oil to the highest bidder.
Analysts say Iran has actually increased its own volume of oil exports since the start of the war, because Iranian tankers have been able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Bessent said the Iranian oil would have been going to China. He suggested the sanctions waiver would reduce oil prices because it could go elsewhere and add more global supply to the market. ABC News has asked the Treasury Department for more clarity on how exactly that would work.
"In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or or 14 days as we continue this campaign. So we have, we have lots of levers. We've got plenty more that we can do," Bessent added.
-ABC News' Elizabeth Schulze and Michelle Stoddart