“We will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a news conference. “We do so on our timeline and at our choosing.”

Group of Seven leaders will convene Wednesday to discuss the crisis in Iran and its ramifications for the world economy, with traders now widely expecting central banks to have to slow their pace of interest-rate cuts.

WATCH: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the US is unleashing the “most intense” day of strikes on Iran.Source: Bloomberg

The UAE’s biggest oil refinery at Ruwais halted operations after a drone strike caused a fire in the industrial area in which it’s located, according to people familiar with the matter.

The US-Israeli airstrikes have degraded Iran’s military capability, with the number of missiles and drones it has fired at Gulf states and Israel having diminished over the course of the war, now its its 12th day. US officials say more than 90% of Tehran’s launchers have been destroyed.

But dislodging the conservative clerics and the well armed and funded Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that rule the country will be a formidable task. The Guards — which are separate from the regular military — has around 200,000 active troops and another 600,000 volunteers, including the Basij paramilitary militia, US assessments show.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated that Tehran is prepared to scale back the conflict “on the condition that the airspace, territory, and waters” of neighboring countries aren’t used to launch attacks on the Islamic Republic, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.

The likes of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have consistently said they’re not allowing the US or Israel to use their territories or airspace for strikes on Iran.

More than 1,300 Iranians have been killed in the war so far, according to an official toll, although that number hasn’t been updated for several days.

Mojtaba Khamenei was named Iran’s supreme leader after his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed in the initial wave of strikes. Iranian state television has reported that the younger Khamenei had been injured, but the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency cited Yousef Pezeshkian, a son and adviser of Iran’s president, as saying he’d been told he was in good health.

At least seven US service members have died, most of them in the first two days of fighting. The White House confirmed Tuesday that around 150 personnel had been injured so far. There have been several deaths in Gulf countries and Israel.

Israeli forces maintained attacks on southern Lebanon, aiming to degrade Iran-aligned Hezbollah. Some 570 people have been killed in Lebanon and 1,444 injured, according to the nation’s health ministry. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the Lebanese operations.

Trump pledged during his election campaign not to allow the US to become involved in protracted foreign wars, and there’s a risk that more American casualties and sustained high gasoline prices will weigh on Republicans’ chances in November midterm elections.

--With assistance from Patrick Sykes and Kateryna Kadabashy.

(Updates with IEA plans in second paragraph, UK navy vessels hits in third.)

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