Canada secures 'limited' seats for citizens on flight out of Lebanon as violence spreads across Middle East

state of israel takes take at Iran's certificate sites, Tehran responds with missiles and drones

Putting U.S. Troops in Iran ‘not part of the plan’ for now: Leavitt

Heavy damage after strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut

Carney calls Iran conflict 'failure of the international order,' but supports regime change

Why is the U.S. And Israel-Iran war crossing into Lebanon?

Fact check: Grok tells users fake Tel Aviv video is real

Hegseth says U.S. 'winning' in Iran, but end goal of war remains unclear to many

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said a U.S. Submarine sunk an Iranian warship, and that his country is 'winning war in Iran.' But the White House has struggled with its messaging about why it started the war in the first place. Former U.S. State Department official Andrew Miller says that's 'characteristic' for the Trump administration.

A lot has happened today. If you're just coming to this page now, here are the key updates:

Global Affairs Canada says it has secured a "limited number of seats" on a commercial flight from Beirut to Istanbul scheduled for tomorrow. 

Flight ME 1265 is set to depart at 6:30 p.m. Local time on Thursday and will cost about $520 ($381 US) and must be paid for at the time of booking. Seats will be given on a first-come, first-served basis until 10 a.m. Local time tomorrow, GAC says.

This is the second day that Global Affairs has helped Canadians claim seats on a flight out of Beirut. The same flight (ME 1265) slated for today included reserved seats for Canadians, too.

Earlier, Anand said she has been "on the phone night and day" with her counterparts in the region to make sure Ottawa is "providing utmost support for Canadians in need."

Earlier today, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Spain has agreed to co-operate with the U.S. Military, after explicitly refusing to let U.S. Aircraft use jointly operated military bases. Trump then threatened a retaliatory trade embargo against Madrid. 

But it's unclear how Leavitt got that information — considering Spain denies it. 

The country's foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, said Spain's position on the war has not changed. 

"I categorically deny it," he told a private Spanish radio station. 

I just did an interview with Dennis Horak, who served as the last head of mission for Canada in Iran, right before the embassy there closed in 2012 due to deteriorating relations.

I asked Horak what he made of Prime Minister Mark Carney's position on these strikes — notably that he supports them, but does so with "regret." At one point in comments made Tuesday, Carney said: "Prima facie, it appears these actions are inconsistent with international law."

Here's how Horak responded:

"That is really sort of skirting the issue. Because, I mean, essentially what he's saying is we would not have participated because we would have considered it a violation of international law. However, now that it's happened, we do support some of the objectives of the mission. 

"It's kind of clumsy. I'm not sure I would have phrased it exactly the way he did, but it is certainly an issue that it is going to keep coming back at him."

I found it really helpful to listen at length to someone with so much on-the-ground experience. You can find the full conversation here. 

Speaking of potential regime change, Petraeus brought up the rumours that the CIA has plans to arm Iranian Kurds.

"It's exactly what the CIA should be doing," Petraeus said, adding that such moves could develop and build forces that are "willing to take on the Iranian regime."

"The question is whether a minority element can muster enough power to do that," Petraeus said of the Kurds in the region. "There will still be nearly a million regime security forces left." 

According to Reuters, sources have confirmed that Iranian Kurdish militias have consulted with the United States in recent days about whether, and how, to attack Iran's security forces in the western part of the country.

The goal would be to create room for Iranians opposed to the Islamic regime to rise up now that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other top officials have been killed.

Now the U.S. "can bring in non-stealthy aircraft" that can cause "substantial damage," Petraeus said.

He also noted that continued success depends on what he referred to as "missile math." 

Basically, a calculation of how many missiles Iran has left versus how many interceptors the U.S. Still has.

"There's a finite number of interceptors in the world," Petraeus said, adding that the U.S. Undoubtedly has several targets in Iran, including drone stockpiles, launch sites and manufacturing capacity.  

According to Petraeus, the U.S. Will assess when they've done enough damage to the thousands of individual targets. 

Finally, he noted that Iranian regime change is an indirect objective. The U.S. Military can "set the conditions" that would allow others to "carry out such a mission," Petraeus said. 

As Iran draws criticism from world leaders for its attacks throughout the region, the country's president is affirming its right to self-defence.

"Dear esteemed leaders of our friendly and neighboring countries, we have strived, with your assistance and through diplomacy, to avoid war. However, the American-Zionist military attack has left us with no choice but to defend ourselves," Masoud Pezeshkian said on X, referring to the U.S. And Israel's joint offensive. 

"We respect your sovereignty and still believe that the region's peace must be ensured by the countries of the region." 

Pezeshkian's statements come after Iranian missiles were struck down while en route to Turkey's airspace and another strike against a base housing U.S. Troops in Qatar.

Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said that strikes in Qatar were aimed at "U.S. Interests." But Qatar has rejected the claim and called for an immediate halt of attacks by Iran.

European leaders also condemned Iran's attacks, with Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski calling out Iran for "broadening the war to countries that did not attack it." 

The notion of a ground invasion of Iran came up during today's Pentagon briefing — but not one led by the U.S. 

Rather Hegseth and Caine were asked about reports that the CIA had spent months arming the Kurdish minority in Iran to fight the regime. 

Caine deflected the question. But it has people in the Middle East talking.

Iraqi Kurds have played major roles in the war in Iraq, fighting with and for the Americans. They did so again in operations against ISIS. 

I asked Thomas Juneau, a Canadian national security analyst about the possibility of the U.S. Outsourcing the ground invasion to Iran's estimated five million Kurds.

"It's very difficult to see anything good happening out of this," he said. "There's a long history of the U.S. And others abandoning the Kurds when it doesn't suit them, and then making them extremely vulnerable."

He warned it could be a bloodbath if this plan actually comes to fruition; Iran has more than a million soldiers across its different military branches. 

Juneau said there is no way the Kurdish minority could take over the country. But they might be able to take control of a portion, which might explain why American warplanes have been hammering Iranian military positions in western Iran, where the Kurds largely live.

As explosions continue to echo in Tehran, Iranian state media is reporting that a farewell ceremony for Iran's slain leader scheduled for today has been postponed, with officials citing logistical issues. 

After his assassination on Saturday at age 86, Khamenei's body was supposed to lie in state in a large mosque in the Iranian capital from Wednesday evening.

It's been a rocky week for global stocks, but North American markets have had a relatively calm start to the trading day. On Wall Street, the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow opened in the green, and the Toronto Stock Exchange is also up after tumbling 2.2 per cent on Tuesday.

With so much uncertainty in the air, at least one major U.S. Banker thinks that the market's reaction to the Iran war has been, up to this point, underwhelming — and that it might take a few more weeks for investors to digest the longer term consequences of this conflict. 

"I'm actually surprised," David Solomon, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, said during a business summit event on Tuesday. "I think the market reaction has been more benign, given the magnitude of this, than you might think."

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