Smoke rises after reported Iranian missile attacks, following United States and Israel strikes on Iran, as seen from Doha, Qatar, March 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

As Iran’s missile and drone attacks widen and prompt outrage, a loose coalition is forming of Middle Eastern and Western powers to act against Tehran, leaving the regime increasingly isolated as the US and Israel continue their military campaign.

On Monday, several Israeli media outlets reported that Qatar launched strikes against Iran over the last 24 hours, following what officials described as a series of Iranian attacks targeting the country and the broader region.

However, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid al-Ansari denied Doha’s involvement in “the campaign targeting Iran,” describing its actions as defensive in nature rather than part of any war effort.

“We exercised our legitimate right to self-defense and to deter Iranian aggression against our territory,” al-Ansari said in a statement.

The Qatari diplomat further confirmed that officials had prevented a planned attack aimed at Hamad International Airport in Doha.

“It is misguided to suggest that pressuring Gulf nations will bring Iran back to the negotiating table,” al-Ansari said.

“We received no advance warning from Iran regarding the missile strikes,” he continued. “The target was not limited to military installations, but extended to the country’s entire territory. Such attacks will not go unanswered.”

Amid escalating regional tensions, Saudi Arabia could also be drawn into the military campaign against the Islamist regime after two Iranian drones struck near the United States Embassy in Riyadh, igniting an explosion in the city. Saudi Arabia is considering a symbolic attack on Iran in response, according to Israeli media reports.

US President Donald Trump strongly condemned the attack, issuing a stark warning to Tehran and saying that Iranian aggression would be met with a forceful US response.

“They will soon learn the price of the attack on the US Embassy in Riyadh and the killing of American service members,” Trump wrote in a social media post.

Since the start of the war this past weekend, Iran has reportedly launched 450 missiles and 1,140 drones toward Gulf states, a barrage that has pushed regional governments to distance themselves from Tehran and align more openly with the Israeli and American offensive.

As the conflict widened, Iran extended its attacks beyond Israel, targeting what it described as “US interests” across the region and launching missile and drone strikes that reached several Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Iran “is now in complete isolation in the entire world, including among the Gulf states,” Darar al-Hol al-Falasi, a former member of the UAE’s Federal National Council, told the Israeli broadcaster Kan News. “The attacks were like the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Media reports also indicated Iranian strikes in the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, reportedly to preempt any uprising from Kurdish opposition groups, and an Iranian-made drone, likely launched by Iran-backed Hezbollah from ​Lebanon, striking a British base in Cyprus.

According to analysts, Iran appeared to believe that expanding the war and targeting Gulf states would push regional governments to press Washington toward de-escalation. However, the move has instead reinforced regional resistance and prompted closer alignment against Tehran.

Meanwhile, both Washington and Jerusalem have indicated that there is no fixed timetable for ending their military operation, stressing that actions will continue as long as necessary to neutralize the threat posed by Iran

“From the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that, we’ll do it,” Trump said in a statement. 

“This was our last best chance to strike … and eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime,” he continued.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar also said there is no set timeline for the joint military effort with Washington against Iran, describing the strikes as a necessary step to weaken Tehran’s leadership and strategic capabilities.

Initially cautious, European Union members are now gradually increasing their involvement, moving to safeguard strategic assets in the region against Iranian drone and missile threats.

On Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced an increased French military presence in the region, confirming the deployment of fighter jets to the UAE after an Iranian drone struck a French military installation in Abu Dhabi.

“Discussions are underway with France’s allies in the Middle East regarding the provision of equipment to strengthen their defensive capabilities,” Barrot said.

France will dispatch a warship and anti-missile and anti-drone systems to help protect British facilities in Cyprus after two drones targeting the British air base at RAF Akrotiri were intercepted.

Greece also announced its support for Cyprus, deploying four F-16 fighter jets and two frigates, including one carrying the Centauros anti-drone jamming system, while pledging to defend the island “by all necessary means.”

Britain said it would deploy the Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon and two Wildcat helicopters armed with Martlet missiles to strengthen defenses in the Eastern Mediterranean.

European support is expanding beyond Cyprus. French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said France was sending its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the Mediterranean and working to build a coalition that would help secure maritime traffic.

“We have economic interests to protect, because oil prices, gas prices, and the international trade situation are being profoundly disrupted by this war,” Macron said in a televised address.

As Iran presses ahead with its regional escalation despite growing opposition, the United States, along with Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, issued a joint statement strongly condemning Tehran’s “indiscriminate and reckless missile and drone attacks” against sovereign territories across the region.

“We stand united in defense of our citizens, sovereignty, and territory, and reaffirm our right to self-defense in the face of these attacks,” the statement read.

Britain, France, and Germany — collectively known as the E3 — have also condemned what they described as “the indiscriminate and disproportionate missile attacks” by Iran on regional countries, saying the strikes pose a broader threat to regional stability.

“Iran’s reckless attacks have targeted our close allies and are threatening our service personnel and our civilians across the region,” the statement said. 

“We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source,” it continued. “We have agreed to work together with the US and allies in the region on this matter.”

Meanwhile, China and Russia — despite their close ties to Iran — have so far limited their response to diplomatic statements and calls for de-escalation, echoing their restrained posture during last year’s 12-day war with Israel.

Moscow convened emergency meetings and publicly denounced the attacks but stopped short of offering material assistance to Tehran, despite the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership treaty the two countries signed last year.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed that Beijing opposes unilateral military action and supports Iran’s right to defend itself.

“China supports Iran in upholding its sovereignty, security, territorial integrity, and national dignity, while safeguarding its legitimate rights and interests,” the Chinese diplomat said in a statement.

“Major powers should not exploit their military superiority to launch arbitrary attacks on other nations, and the world must not return to a law of the jungle,” she continued. 

Beijing is even urging Tehran to avoid disrupting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — a vital passage connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea and a key route for global energy shipments — as escalating conflict threatens international oil and gas supplies.

Iran has long threatened to close the waterway in the event of war with the US.

A woman holds a photo of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as she takes part in anti-US protest outside the White House. Photo: Matrix Images / Gent Shkullaku via Reuters Connect

Anti-Zionist faculty on college campuses are cajoling students to support Islamism, jihad, and terrorism by recruiting them to participate in demonstrations for the revolutionary government of Iran, a regime which is responsible for killing American soldiers through proxy groups across the Middle East.

“Dear Students, I know it is very short notice, but for those who would like to participate in social protest against the US and Israeli war on Iran, Angelenos are gathering in 2 hours at City Hall,” Elizabeth Ribet, a professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, wrote on Saturday, signing off the note with “solidarity.”

“This email is a blatant example of a professor abusing her academic authority to politicize the classroom,” Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, higher education expert and executive director of the campus watchdog group AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeiner in an exclusive statement. “AMCHA Initiative’s latest report documents hundreds of similar examples and concludes that when faculty blur the line between teaching and anti-Israel political advocacy, antisemitic hostility on campus rises. Recognizing this danger, more than 350 UC [University of California] faculty have recently urged the Regents to act. UC leaders must recommit to academic integrity and ensure classrooms remain places of scholarship and rigorous inquiry, not platforms for political mobilization.”

Ribet’s note is one of many communications that pro-jihadist student and faculty groups have issued since the US and Israel launched military strikes against Iran and killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei over the weekend.

Since then, The Algemeiner has reviewed over a dozen examples of faculty, specifically the Faculty for Justice in Palestine organization, proclaiming solidarity with Iran’s Islamist, authoritarian regime and lambasting the US and Israel for their joint operation.

“These u.s.-backed attacks are designed to spark a regional war, sacrificing the people of Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and beyond to further amerikkkan and zionist domination [sic],” said a post liked by the University of California Ethnic Studies Council, a body of professors who proposed an ethnic studies high school requirement for UC admissions. Critics have noted that the proposal pushed anti-Zionism in the classroom.

“Every drop of their blood spilled ignites our rage, our grief, and our duty,” the post continued. “We must continue to organize in solidarity with the Palestinian people, until the end of zionism [sic] and the liberation of Palestine.”

It added, “RESISTANCE IS GLORIOUS.”

The UC Ethnic Studies Council also shared a post by the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, a far-left group that has defended terrorism against Israel, which said, “We reject imperialist and wear mongering narratives that position Iran as the intruder in the region, rather than US military bases and US interventionism.”

In Bronxville, New York, Sarah Lawrence College’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) chapter posted a volley of messages which called for “de-platforming Zionists” and ending military operations in Iran. The group also shared false claims that the US opened fire on Pakistani civilians.

Just miles away, Saint John’s University FJP group shared agitprop falsely alleging that the US intentionally targeted an Iranian school with an airstrike and has “always … sacrificed” children. The group also called for sabotaging the war effort by refusing to file taxes or to file by paper to delay the government’s receiving revenue. Meanwhile, the post suggested that agents in the government are prepared to participate in the conspiracy.

“The absolute bare minimum those of us in the imperial core should be doing is NOT FUNDING THIS SH—T,” said the post. “For example even just filing your taxes via paper slows down the IRS and makes it easier for other tax registers to make an impact with their actions as well.”

Bowdoin College, New York University, Bryn Mawr College, and Haverford College all have Faculty for Justice in Palestine groups sharing similar social media content.

The posts come after the Iranian regime killed tens of thousands of civilian anti-government protesters last month in a brutal crackdown. Iran for years has also been the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, according to Western intelligence agencies. For example, Iran funded, armed, and trained Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that perpetrated the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.

College faculty not only promote terrorism but also play a singular role in triggering and accelerating the campus antisemitism crisis, according to a recent study by AMCHA Initiative.

Focusing on UC campuses as case studies, the study exposed Oct 7 denialism; faculty calling for driving Jewish institutions off campus; the founding of pro-Hamas, Faculty for Justice in Palestine groups; and hundreds of endorsers of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

“While students are the most visible actors, faculty and academic departments are key institutional drivers of the hostile environment,” the AMCHA Initiative said following the report’s publication. “Across three campuses, many faculty who promoted anti-Israel activism through university channels had previously endorsed an academic boycott of Israel (academic BDS). The boycott’s guidelines explicitly call on supporters to implement ‘anti-normalization’ in their professional roles. These include excluding Zionist perspectives, speakers, and programs from academic life.”

The report followed previous studies revealing the extent of faculty misconduct in higher education promoting anti-Israel animus and even outright antisemitism.

Just last month, The Algemeiner learned that, according to a lawsuit, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University assigned a Jewish student a project on “what Jews do to make themselves such a hated group.”

Similar incidents have come at a fast clip since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre: a Cornell University praised the terrorist group’s atrocities, which included mass sexual assaults; a Columbia University professor exalted Hamas terrorists who paraglided into a music festival to murder Israeli youth as the “air force of the Palestinian resistance”; and a Harvard University chapter of FJP shared an antisemitic cartoon which depicted Zionists as murderers of Blacks and Arabs.

“The report documents how concentrated networks of faculty activists on each campus, often operating through academic units and faculty-led advocacy formations, convert institutional platforms into vehicles for organized anti-Zionist advocacy and mobilization,” the report stated. “It shows how those pathways are associated with recurring student harms and broader campus disruption. It then outlines concrete steps the UC Regents can take to restore institutional neutrality in academic units and set enforceable boundaries so UC resources and authority are not used to advance activist agendas inside the university’s core educational functions.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaks to the media on the day of his meeting with Ireland’s Prime Minister Simon Harris to discuss recognizing a Palestinian state, in Dublin, Ireland, April 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

Iran has expressed support for Spain’s decision to block US forces from using its bases for military operations against the Islamic regime, leaving Madrid as the only major EU country to have explicitly criticized the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

In response to an online news report saying that the Spanish government “denies that the US is using its bases in Spain for the war against Iran,” the Iranian embassy in Spain reshared the headline and added, “Iran fully recognizes and respects this position, which is in accordance with international law.”

Irán reconoce plenamente y respeta esta posición, que está en consonancia con el derecho internacional. https://t.co/1U06SCqaWk

— Embajada de Irán en España (@IraninSpain) March 2, 2026

Spain, one of Europe’s most outspoken critics of the joint US-Israel operation, quickly condemned the strikes against Iran after they began on Saturday.

“We reject the unilateral military action of the United States and Israel, which represents an escalation and contributes to a more uncertain and hostile international order,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.

“You can be against a heinous regime, like the Iranian regime, while also rejecting a military intervention that is unjustified, dangerous and outside of international law,” the socialist leader added the next day.

According to media reports, at least 11 US tanker aircraft left bases in southern Spain late Sunday evening, and at least seven arrived at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, with two others headed toward France. The others’ destinations remained unknown.

While Spain has strongly condemned the US-Israeli attack on Iranian regime targets, other European countries have denounced Iran’s counterstrikes on civilian sites across the Middle East.

Israel lambasted Spain’s response to the conflict.

“In Europe, you have all kinds of approaches,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told Euronews on Sunday. “You have countries like the Czech Republic which is strongly supporting this operation and then you have Spain, which is standing with all the tyrants of the world.”

Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares pushed back on Sa’ar’s characterization, labeling the accusation “absurd and ridiculous.” The Spanish diplomat added that “we have condemned every human rights violation from the Iranian regime and we are with the people of Iran.”

In an interview on Spanish television on Sunday, Albares said the nation’s bases “will not be used for anything that falls outside the agreement with the United States and the United Nations Charter.”

Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, Spain has been one of Israel’s fiercest critics, launching a fierce anti-Israel campaign aimed at undermining and isolating the Jewish state on the international stage.

Earlier this month, police raided a steel factory near Bilbao, northern Spain, questioning staff over suspected violations of the country’s arms embargo on Israel

The Action and Communication on the Middle East (ACOM) group, a pro-Israel organization in Spain, described the move as part of a “pattern of political pressure on economic actors for ideological reasons.”

“The combination of state intervention with a political climate that tolerates — and sometimes encourages — aggressive activism against Israel and its partners creates a scenario in which civil liberties and the legal security of companies and citizens are steadily eroded,” ACOM said in a statement.

In September, the Spanish government passed a law to take “urgent measures to stop the genocide in Gaza,” banning trade in defense material and dual-use products from Israel, as well as imports and advertising of products originating from Israeli settlements.

That same month, Spain recalled its ambassador to Israel and Sánchez accused Israel of “exterminating defenseless people” in Gaza and “breaking all the rules of humanitarian law.”

Sánchez’s administration expanded the boycotted products to ban imports from Israeli communities in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.

While pursuing such policies and attacking Israel verbally, Sánchez has facing backlash from his country’s political leaders and Jewish community, who accuse him of fueling antisemitic hostility.

Amid a sharp rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes and anti-Israel sentiment, Lorenzo Rodríguez, mayor of Castrillo Mota de Judíos in northern Spain, accused the country’s leader in September of “fueling a discourse of hatred” against Israel and the Jewish people.

“The government is fostering antisemitism that will prove deeply damaging for Spain,” Rodríguez said in an interview with the local outlet El Español.

Comparing Spain’s attitude toward Israel with other countries, Sa’ar stated over the weekend that “the obsessive activism of the current Spanish government against Israel stands out in light of its ties with dark, tyrannical regimes — from Iran’s ayatollahs to [Nicolás] Maduro’s government in Venezuela.”