US-Iran war as it happened: Trump threatens Iran with ‘four-hour bombing blitz’ if Strait of Hormuz not reopened; 45-day ceasefire proposal rejected

The King Fahd Causeway, a key bridge linking Saudi Arabia and the island kingdom of Bahrain, has reopened after closing for hours over possible threats of airstrikes by Iran.

The King Fahd Causeway Authority made the announcement in a post on X, saying the only route by road between Bahrain and the Arabian Peninsula had reopened. Bahrain’s airport has been closed over the threat of Iranian attacks for weeks.

The hours-long closure came after a ballistic missile attack from Iran targeted Saudi Arabia and might have done damage to energy infrastructure there.

Saudi Arabia has not elaborated on damage from that attack.

AP

The Australian sharemarket closed in the green today amid uncertainty ahead of US President Donald Trump’s latest Iran deadline, as the oil price also moved higher.

The S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.7 per cent, or 149.3 points, to 8728.8 in its first day of trading after the Easter long weekend, with all 11 industry sectors in the green. Trump has given Iran a deadline of 10am on Wednesday (AEST) to agree to a deal.

Adam Dawes, a senior investment adviser at Shaw and Partners, said the move higher in oil prices suggested markets were hedging that the conflict could take longer to resolve than Trump’s preferred timeline. “Higher prices mean that this issue is going to take longer,” Dawes said.

Mining stocks were sharply higher, with BHP rising 3.3 per cent, Rio Tinto gaining 3 per cent and Fortescue up 2.1 per cent. Gold players were mixed with Northern Star up 2 per cent and Evolution Mining down 1.6 per cent.

Oil and gas giant Woodside also rallied and rose 2.5 per cent, while Santos edged 0.1 per cent higher. Oil prices advanced. Brent, the international standard, rose 1.2 per cent to trade above $US111 a barrel in the afternoon.

Read the full market wrap here.

Iran’s new supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei is hurt and unable to run the country, UK-based newspaper The Times reports, citing a diplomatic memo based on American and Israeli intelligence that was shared with their Gulf allies.

The Times report also said Khamanei was receiving medical treatment for a “severe” medical condition in the Iranian holy city of Qom, a city considered sacred in Shia Islam.

Khamenei has been absent from the public eye despite being appointed the supreme leader in March, following the death of his father, the late supreme leader Ali Khamenei, at the start of the war.

However, information on Mojtaba Khamenei’s location has reportedly been known to US and Israeli spy agencies for some time, The Times reported.

Mojtaba Khamenei was wounded in the same February 28 airstrike that killed his father. The strike also killed his mother, his wife and one of their sons.

Australia can capitalise on its strong relationship with Singapore to secure more fuel, Industry Minister Tim Ayers says.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today announced he would head to Singapore in hope of securing pole position ahead of other nations if Singaporean firms become selective in deciding where its fuel shipments go.

While Ayers conceded “the longer the conflict goes on the tougher this will be for Australia”, he said the government’s good diplomatic standing with Singapore was an asset.

“The work that the prime minister is doing later this week for instance … meeting Prime Minister [Lawrence] Wong in Singapore, they are a really important fuel security for Australia,” Ayers told the ABC.

“So making sure that we’re leaning into the relationships that we have in the region with our fuel security partners is really important. Australia’s improved standing in the region is a real asset now when we’re facing a shortage in global assets.”

Iranian state television claims 14 million people have volunteered to fight for the country if there is a ground invasion by the United States and Israel.

The claim by state TV, which included no other information, doubles an earlier claim by Iran’s parliamentary Speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, that 7 million had volunteered to fight.

Iran is home to 90 million people. Iran had conducted a bloody crackdown on nationwide demonstrations in January that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands detained.

State media and text message campaigns have urged people to volunteer. The government also has called on retired soldiers to express their interest in fighting, while the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force has begun accepting children as young as 12 into its ranks.

AP

If the Vietnam War was the first major televised conflict and the Gulf War was launched alongside burgeoning cable networks, then Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s strikes on Iran are landing in the early days of the AI media age.

That is having strange consequences: real footage of mass civilian graves in Iran has been dismissed by AI chatbots as fake, while Instagram users have been fooled into following an account ostensibly belonging to a beautiful US soldier who happens to also post sexualised pictures of her feet.

With Iran essentially a black box for reliable journalism and Trump’s reputation with the international community and domestic voters on the line ahead of this year’s midterm elections, the stakes are high in the media war.

The widespread use of artificial intelligence in war propaganda has been expected for some time, says David Wroe, resident senior fellow at Canberra-based think tank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. But the speed at which this content is now being created and pushed out on social media is unprecedented.

Propagandists build a haystack around the needle of truth and pump out so much information – both true and false – that it is impossible to discern fact from fiction.

Read the full story here.