The Daily Populous Tuesday March 31st, 2026 morning edition
Authored by npr.org and submitted by callsonreddit

Iran's strike wounded over a dozen U.S. personnel and hit valuable jets in Saudi Arabia

NPR has confirmed more than a dozen U.S. service members were wounded and two E-3 Sentry aircraft were damaged in an Iranian strike on an air base in Saudi Arabia on Friday.

President Trump has repeated the assertion that Iran wants a deal while he has also ordered thousands of U.S. troops to deploy to the Middle East and even warned the U.S. may try to seize Iran's oil and Kharg Island — or blow it up.

On Monday, Trump expanded a threat he had made if Iran refuses to open the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping passage, writing on social media the U.S. would not only destroy Iranian electric plants and oil wells but also "possibly all desalinization plants!" That would potentially raise the number of civilian infrastructure sites targeted in the region.

Iran struck a desalination plant in Kuwait overnight. And three United Nations peacekeepers were killed in Lebanon in 24 hours as Israel continues to battle the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Here's more news on Day 31 of the Iran war:

To jump to specific areas of coverage, use the links below:

U.S. losses in Saudi | Regime change | Jerusalem patriarch | Strikes | Peacekeepers killed | Oil prices | Infrastructure | Global reaction

More than a dozen U.S. service members were wounded and two E-3 Sentry aircraft were damaged in an Iranian strike on an air base in Saudi Arabia on Friday, according to a U.S. official. Several of the service members have serious injuries. (NPR earlier reported as many as 20 personnel were wounded in the attack.)

The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

Iran has targeted U.S. service members at bases throughout the region since the war began a month ago, in retaliation for the U.S. attacks and seeking to drive troops out of the region. Overall, the Pentagon has put the U.S. casualty toll at 13 killed and more than 300 injured. Many of the wounded had minor injuries and returned to duty.

"Just look at what we did to their aerial command," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on social media Monday. "High time to eject U.S. forces."

Araghchi stressed that the strikes were intended to hit U.S. forces, not Saudi Arabia itself, saying: "Iran respects the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and considers it a brotherly nation."

Later, Saudi Arabia's Defense Ministry said it intercepted four ballistic missiles headed toward the Riyadh capital area.

Trump says there's been "regime change"

Speaking Sunday on Air Force One on the way to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, President Trump told reporters he thought to some extent the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran has achieved regime change.

"We've had regime change if you look already because the one regime was decimated, destroyed, they're all dead," he said, referring to top ranking officials killed in the war including the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"The next regime is mostly dead, and the third regime we're dealing with different people than anybody's dealt with before, it's a whole different group of people," Trump said. On Monday, he called the new regime "more reasonable."

After the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei early in the war, he was succeeded by his son Mojtaba Khamenei, who hasn't been seen in public and may be wounded, and who is widely considered to represent a continuation of Iran's hard-line theocracy.

"So I think we've had regime change, I mean you can't do much better than that," Trump said.

He said the administration was in both direct and indirect talks with the new regime. Iran has repeatedly denied any negotiations or talks are taking place.

"We have had no negotiations with America," only the exchange of negotiation requests and a proposal from the U.S. via intermediary countries such as Pakistan, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said on social media late Monday.

But Trump has insisted there are substantial negotiations and is desperate to make a deal. He said Iran has allowed some "big boats of oil" to transit the largely blocked Strait of Hormuz "out of a sign of respect."

toggle caption Ammar Awad/AFP via Getty Images

War and religion clashed as police prevented the Catholic Church's highest official in Jerusalem from entering one of the religion's holiest sites on Palm Sunday. Citing war restrictions on gatherings in the Old City, Israeli police barred the Latin Patriarch from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Officers stopped Jerusalem's top Catholic official, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and another leader from holding private Palm Sunday prayers there.

The office of Cardinal Pizzaballa said it was "the first time in centuries" a Latin Patriarch had been turned away from the holy site on Palm Sunday, according to Vatican News.

Public gatherings in Israel are limited to 50 people due to the war and dangers from incoming missiles from Iran. But in the Old City's holy sites, restrictions have been tighter.

World leaders and the pope condemned the closure, which also drew a rare rebuke of Israel from U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said the cardinal would be granted full and immediate access to the church.

Israel strikes Tehran and trades attacks with Hezbollah

Despite Trump's positive assessment of negotiations, fighting continued unabated in the Middle East on Monday morning.

The Israeli military said it had struck weapons production sites in Tehran overnight including: "a site used for assembling long-range anti-aircraft missiles."

Israel also continued its campaign in Lebanon, bombing Beirut's southern suburbs.

For its part, Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at bases in northern Israel and Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli military said on Sunday two of its soldiers were "seriously wounded as a result of anti-tank fire directed at IDF forces in southern Lebanon," using the military's initials. That came after a Connecticut-born Israeli soldier was killed in a combat operation in southern Lebanon on Saturday.

3 U.N. peacekeepers were killed in the past 24 hours

Three members of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon have been killed in the past 24 hours, the force said Monday.

Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the U.N.'s undersecretary-general for peace operations, said two Indonesian peacekeepers were killed when "an explosion of unknown origin destroyed their vehicle" near the municipality of Bani Hayyan in southern Lebanon. Another Indonesian was killed Sunday when a U.N. base was shelled.

Lacroix said both incidents are under investigation and it is not clear if the latest attack was a shelling or a roadside bomb.

"We strongly condemn these unacceptable incidents. Peacekeepers must never be a target," Lacroix said.

About 10,000 peacekeepers are stations with the unit formally known as the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), and they're constrained in what they can do militarily. Their mandate ends this year.

Lacroix said he is in constant contact with the Israeli military, which has expanded what he described as a "buffer zone" inside Lebanon as it tries to push Hezbollah farther north.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the killing of the U.N. peacekeepers in a statement. He requested an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, which is expected to be held Tuesday.

Oil prices rose as high as $116 a barrel before settling lower on Monday, after President Trump threatened to take Iran's oil and its Kharg Island and as Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi militant group entered the fray this weekend.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, has jumped more than 50% since the start of March, surpassing the previous record of 46% during the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer held talks Monday with energy industry leaders, including those from BP and Shell. He told them there has to be a "joint effort" to tackle the fallout from the war and "the government can't do it on its own," according to the U.K.'s Press Association.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Monday his government was cutting its tax on fuel and diesel for at least four months to help reduce the pressure on Australian consumers.

Iran said its electricity grid was stable after attacks caused power cuts in some areas. Iranian state media says shrapnel from weekend strikes damaged power equipment in Tehran and nearby Karaj city, leading to hours-long blackouts in both places.

Israel said over the weekend it hit about 140 targets in Iran. Iran said several of those strikes hit universities, and is now threatening to hit U.S. campuses in the Middle East in retaliation.

Meanwhile, Russia's state nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, is warning that strikes are deteriorating the condition of Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant. Rosatom helped build the Bushehr plant, which has been hit multiple times during the war.

Separately, the International Agency for Atomic Energy said bombing had rendered an Iranian water plant inoperational.

"Based on independent analysis of satellite imagery and knowledge of the installation, the IAEA has confirmed the heavy water production plant at Khondab, which Iran reported had been attacked on 27 March, has sustained severe damaged and is no longer operational. The installation contains no declared nuclear material," the body said on social media.

Iran is hitting back. Over the weekend, Iranian forces struck an industrial zone in southern Israel, starting a fire at a chemical plant and raising fears of a leak. The regime also attacked a power and desalination plant in Kuwait overnight, killing a worker from India, the ministry of water and electricity said in a statement.

Desalination plants are vital for water-scarce Gulf Arab countries, drawing seawater and removing salts and minerals so the water can be used for drinking and basic needs.

And after Israeli attacks caused extensive damage at two of Iran's largest steel plants, Iran attacked aluminum factories over the weekend in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Emirates Global Aluminum said the attack caused significant damage to its main facility in Abu Dhabi.

Also Monday, Israel reported a fire at an oil refinery in the northern city of Haifa, and Hezbollah claimed it had targeted Haifa's naval base.

Spain has closed its air space to U.S. military aircraft involved in strikes in Iran, forcing them to reroute. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been vocal in his opposition to the war in Iran.

Pakistan's foreign minister is headed to China, where he'll be holding discussions on regional developments. On Sunday, Pakistan hosted the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey for discussions aimed at finding a solution to ending the Iran war.

"China commends and supports Pakistan's mediation effort for deescalation and stands ready to enhance communication and coordination with Pakistan and others to jointly work for a ceasefire and peace in the region," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a statement.

On Monday, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said only Trump could stop the war and expressed concerns the price of a barrel of oil could hit as much as $200 if it continues.

"I tell President Trump: Nobody can stop the war in our region in the Gulf but you," he said at the Egypt Energy Show 2026 conference in Cairo, Reuters reported.

Carrie Kahn in Jerusalem, Emily Feng in Van, Turkey, Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Kate Bartlett in Johannesburg, Michele Kelemen and Tom Bowman in Washington, and Quil Lawrence in New York contributed reporting to this story.

WafflePartyOrgy on March 31st, 2026 at 00:51 UTC »

Russia most likely gave Iran geographic coordinates and satellite imagery that provided the precise location.

Also today:

> Trump says he has 'no problem' with Russian oil tanker bringing relief to Cuba despite blockade

Active-Pineapple-252 on March 31st, 2026 at 00:31 UTC »

I've noticed less footage of Iran strikes these last couple of days seems they have gotten even tighter on keeping footage hidden

callsonreddit on March 31st, 2026 at 00:18 UTC »

> NPR has confirmed more than a dozen U.S. service members were wounded and two E-3 Sentry aircraft were damaged in an Iranian strike on an air base in Saudi Arabia on Friday.

> President Trump has repeated the assertion that Iran wants a deal while he has also ordered thousands of U.S. troops to deploy to the Middle East and even warned the U.S. may try to seize Iran's oil and Kharg Island — or blow it up.