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Iran deploys Lego-style animation in propaganda war with US, Israel

While Iran hits back against U.S. and Israeli attacks with missiles and drones, it is also fighting a propaganda war with a Lego-style animation video complete with toy renditions of Donald Trump, bombs and warplanes.

Iran's state-run Revayat-e Fath institute released its video on state television following the February 28 U.S.-Israeli attacks that killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and triggered the Middle East war.

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Iran vows to fight on and block all Gulf oil

Iran vowed on Tuesday that not one liter of oil would be exported from the Gulf while its war with the United States and Israel continues, in a stark rebuke to President Donald Trump's boast that the conflict was all but over.

Trump's argument that the war would be "ended soon" helped reverse the Monday's spike in oil prices, which have surged since Iranian attacks on shipping closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to the U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed its supreme leader.

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Iran targets Israel and Gulf countries, Netanyahu says 'not done yet'

Iran launched new attacks on Tuesday at Israel and Gulf Arab countries as it kept up pressure on the Middle East in a war that has sent oil prices surging and stunned global economies. Five pro-Iranian militiamen were killed in an airstrike in northern Iraq.

Incoming missile sirens sounded early in the morning in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and in Bahrain, while Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed two drones over its oil-rich eastern region and Kuwait's National Guard said it had shot down six drones.

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Putin and Trump discuss Iran and Ukraine wars

Russia's President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday discussed the Iran war and Ukraine conflict during a "frank and constructive" telephone call, the Kremlin said.

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Trump says Iran war 'pretty much' over

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday in an interview with CBS that the war with Iran was "very complete" and that the United States was far ahead of his initial timeline of around a month.

U.S. stocks jumped higher and oil prices sank in after-hours trading following Trump's comments, despite the fact that there were no immediate signs of the conflict abating.

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Macron visits Cyprus, talks Lebanon with Netanyahu

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Cyprus on Monday to discuss regional security, while Paris deployed warships to the Mediterranean and the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran stretched into a second week.

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One killed in central Israel by shrapnel from Iranian missiles

Israel's first responders said one person was killed by shrapnel as several blasts rocked central Israel Monday, shortly after the military reported detecting new missiles launched from Iran.

"After performing resuscitation efforts, we had to pronounce the death of a man, approximately 40 years old," Magen David Adom said in a statement, adding that the death occurred at a construction site in central Israel.

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Investigation further suggests US struck Iranian school, killing 165

The investigative group Bellingcat says newly released video "appears to contradict" U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that Iran was responsible for an explosion at an Iranian school that killed over 165 people at the start of the war raging in the Mideast.

It comes as mounting evidence points to U.S. culpability for the Feb. 28 strike, which hit a school adjacent to a Revolutionary Guard base in Minab, Iran, in the country's southern Hormozgan Province. Experts interviewed by The Associated Press, citing satellite image analysis, say the school was likely struck amid a quick succession of bombs dropped on the compound.

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Europe rallies around Cyprus as Macron visits to show support

French President Emmanuel Macron is traveling to Cyprus on Monday, days after dispatching a warship to the east Mediterranean island nation, where a Shahed drone struck a British air base on its southern coast last week during the Iran war.

Macron ordered the French frigate Languedoc to waters off Cyprus to bolster the European Union member country's anti-drone and anti-missiles defenses. The French president also decided to send ground-based anti-drone and anti-missile defenses to the island, which sustained the first drone attack on European territory.

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Iran names Khamenei's son as new supreme leader

Iran's ruling clerics on Sunday appointed the slain leader's son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, as the country's new supreme leader, defying threats from the United States and Israel to oppose him.

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