On Monday night, attacks were reported in Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia, among others. In the Iranian capital, bombings were reported to have triggered major power outages.
In Kuwait, an Indian citizen was killed when an energy and desalination plant was hit, the country's media report.
At the same time, hope is growing for imminent attempts at peace.
Pakistan is pleased that both Iran and the United States have expressed confidence that Pakistan will facilitate the talks, Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on television on Sunday.
It will be an honor for Pakistan to host and facilitate meaningful negotiations between the two sides in the coming days.
No comments
The statements came after Dar met with colleagues from Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. That meeting was scheduled to continue on Monday, but was canceled without explanation.
And even a day after Dar's statement, neither Iran nor the US had directly commented on the information. Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of the Iranians who has been identified as a possible negotiator, instead accuses the US of "secretly planning a ground attack."
In practice, the US has confirmed such plans, with thousands of elite soldiers specialized in such attacks being moved to the Persian Gulf area.
Mocks the signals
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the Pentagon is preparing ground operations inside Iran that could last at least several weeks. However, the newspaper's sources emphasize that the planning does not go as far as "a full-scale ground invasion," and that President Donald Trump has not yet decided whether the plans will become reality.
Meanwhile, Ghalibaf mocks the US's scattered signals. Following Trump's remarks on Truth Social a week ago about paused attacks, which came just as financial markets opened after the weekend, the Iranian speaker writes that "so-called 'news' or 'Truth' is often just a trap for profit-taking."
He thus suggests that Trump and his circle are trying to control the image of the war so that they can reap stock market profits, and in Sunday's post on X he urges people to be on their guard ahead of this week's trading. "Do you see anything tomorrow? Then you'll know what it's all about."
