US-Iran war live updates: Wong rules out Australian ground offensive; Iran set to appoint new leader; Kuwait tower aflame following airstrikes

An Iranian drone attack caused “material damage” to a desalination plant, Bahrain said on Sunday morning local time. It is the first time an Arab country has reported Iran targeting a desalination plant during the nine-day war.

Hundreds of desalination plants sit along the Persian Gulf coast, and the Arab countries in the region rely heavily on the facilities for their drinking water.

Bahrain’s water authority said the Iranian attack had no impact on water supplies.

Bahrain has also announced that three people were injured when material damage was inflicted on a university building in Muharraq, the country’s third-largest city, following “Iranian aggression”.

AP, Reuters

The clerical body that will choose Iran’s next supreme leader, succeeding the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has more or less reached a majority consensus, Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Mohammadmehdi Mirbaqeri said on Sunday.

The Mehr news agency quoted him as saying “some obstacles” still needed to be resolved regarding the process.

On Saturday, a senior cleric in the Assembly of Experts said its members would meet “within one day” to choose the leader.

Two members of the panel, Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir and Ahmad Alamolhoda, said the assembly had chosen a successor, according to Iranian media.

Alamolhoda said the head of the assembly’s secretariat, Ayatollah Hashem Hosseini Bushehri, is responsible for announcing the assembly’s decision.

Iranian media said the group had a minor disagreement over whether they would need to meet in person to issue their final decision, or bypass this formality.

Heidari Alekasir said in a video released by Nournews on Sunday that an in-person meeting was not possible under current conditions, suggesting at remote and written alternatives.

“This is an extraordinary situation, the assembly cannot meet in a plenary,” he said, adding that targeting the assembly would only benefit Iran’s enemies and “harm the revolution”.

Reuters

Good evening. Thanks for joining us in our continuing coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.

Here’s the top headlines of the Iran-US war in the past 24 hours, as it stands on Sunday night in Australia.

• The United States has discussed with Israel the prospect of sending US troops to Iran to secure nuclear facilities on the ground, Axios reported, following a report from NBC that President Donald Trump was seriously considering the move
• Foreign Minister Penny Wong has ruled out Australian troops participating in a ground offensive but says Australia could help Middle Eastern nations defend themselves against attacks by Iran
• The Israeli military warned it would continue pursuing every successor of Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the initial US and Israeli strikes on Iran
• Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that US-Israeli forces would strike “many more targets”, after what were thought to be the first hits on fuel depots within Iran
• China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the war “shouldn’t have happened” and cautioned against attempts at regime change but signalled the hostilities would not derail a meeting between Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping
• Without any evidence, Donald Trump has blamed Tehran for the airstrike on a girls’ school in Iran that killed more than 165 people, mostly children

Stay with us tonight as we bring you the latest news on this conflict.