US says 'firepower over Iran to surge dramatically' as Israel bombards Beirut and Tehran

This page is no longer being updated. You can continue to follow our coverage at our new live page here Edited by James Chater and Toby Mann, with Yolande Knell in Jerusalem, Barbara Plett Usher in Doha, Alice Cuddy in Beirut and Orla Guerin in northern Iraq Leavitt says that US President Donald Trump prefers to put peace and diplomacy first, while Iran "chose this path of violence and destruction and they are reaping the consequences". She says the Iranian regime "lied and delayed and tried to string the US along" during negotiations before the initial US-Israeli attack, in order to buy time so they could build ballistic and nuclear weapons. The White House press secretary says US operations in Iran are aimed at "permanently extinguishing their nuclear ambitions". She lays out the objectives we've been hearing from others in the administration over the last few days - including destroying Iran's ballistic missiles and annihilating its navy. Leavitt says the US has destroyed more than 20 ships already - something we heard from the US Central Command earlier. Iran's proxies, meanwhile, are "hardly putting up a fight" and will no longer be able to destabilise the world, she says. Lea