NATO destroys Iranian missile heading for Turkey, frontrunner for supreme leader emerges

The powerful son of Iran’s slain supreme leader emerged on Wednesday as a frontrunner to succeed him as the U.S. stepped up its military campaign against Tehran and NATO air defences destroyed a missile heading from Iran into Turkish airspace. The missile incident reported by Turkey was the first time a NATO member has been drawn into the Middle East conflict, but U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said there was no sense that it would trigger NATO’s collective defence clause. In a sign of the U.S. military’s reach, Hegseth said a U.S. submarine had sunk an Iranian warship off the southern coast of Sri Lanka. At least 80 people were killed, Sri Lanka’s deputy foreign minister told local television. The United States and Israel pressed on with their round-the-clock assaults on Iran that began on Saturday. The top U.S. commander said the campaign was “ahead of the game plan” and Hegseth said the U.S. was winning the conflict. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down,” Hegseth told a briefing. “Our air defenses and that of our allies have plenty of runway. We can sustain this fight easily for ⁠as long as we need to.” A fall in global markets turned into a rout in Asia, including a record-breaking crash in Seoul, as some investors were unconvinced by U.S. President Donald Trump’s assurances he would quickly reopen the world’s most important shipping corridor and release blockaded Middle East oil and gas. European markets later stabilised and turned higher after two days of sharp losses, on hopes that the war might end soon. Some traders said the improved sentiment followed a New York Times report that Iranian intelligence had reached out to the CIA early in the war about a path towards ending it. The report said officials in Washington were sceptical of an “off-ramp” for now, while Trump said on Tuesday that Iranians wanted talks but it was “too late”.