Iran war updates: Iranian woman under protection will forfeit asylum in Australia to return home

Tony Burke has just told Parliament that one of the two Iranian women who last night accepted Australia’s offer of asylum has now changed her mind.

One player and one support staff member decided to take up the offer of a visa to remain in Australia late on Tuesday night, after meeting with the Home Affairs Minister in Brisbane.

But he says that now, after speaking with their teammates who flew out of Australia last night one of the pair has decided she would return home after all.

“In Australia, people are able to change their mind, people are able to travel. So, we respect the context in which she has made that decision,” he said.

However, in doing so she had contacted the Iranian embassy and asked them to collect her, giving away the location of the safe house where she and the other six women were staying.

Mr Burke said they were all immediately removed when he learned of this development.

Iran has launched missiles toward Israel, according to the Israeli military, as tensions continue to escalate in the region.

“Defence systems are operating to intercept the threat,” Israel’s military said in a post on X, urging residents to follow emergency alerts issued to mobile phones in affected areas.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said the strikes targeted a satellite communications centre in Haifa as well as military bases in Israel, alongside US targets elsewhere in the region, including Iraqi Kurdistan and the US Fifth Fleet naval base in Bahrain.

Acting Defence Minister has dodged repeated questions about whether three Australian Navy personnel on a US submarine were ordered to their bunks during last week’s sinking of an Iranian warship.

On Wednesday, The Nightly revealed the Australian submariners were kept in their cabins when the USS Charlotte fired torpedoes at the IRIS Dena, killing at least 87 people.

“I’m not going to get into details of what occurred, but they played no role, absolutely in the offensive operations,” Acting Defence Minister Pat Conroy told reporters in Canberra.

Minister Conroy rejected suggestions the trio hid “under the covers” but insisted that “third party deployments” with the United States military have gone on for decades.

G7 energy ministers have stopped short of agreeing on a release of strategic oil reserves and instead have asked the International Energy Agency to assess the situation before acting.

The IEA said it was convening an extraordinary meeting of its member states on Tuesday.

Members would “assess the current security of supply and market conditions to inform a subsequent decision on whether to make emergency stocks of IEA countries available to the market,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said.

The International Energy Agency has reportedly proposed the largest-ever release of oil reserves to bring the price of crude oil.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that sources close to discussions said the release would be larger than when members put 182 million barrels on the market in 2022, when war between Russia and Ukraine broke out.

The Australian Government has confirmed it has closed the embassy in Israel, warning Aussies not to attempt to travel to the area where it is located.

“Due to heightened security concerns, the Australian Embassy in Tel Aviv is closed,” an update issued by Smartraveller confirmed.

“Do not go to the Embassy and surrounding area.

“Australian officials remain in country and continue to provide consular services.”

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke confirmed that the two additional people granted asylum were swept into an interview room at the Gold Coast airport, where they were able to be alone with just department officials and an interpreter.

“In that situation, what we made sure of was there was no rushing. There was no pressure,” he said.

“Everything was about ensuring the dignity for those individuals to make a choice.

“Obviously, the one thing, the one pressure we couldn’t take away, was the context.

“We couldn’t take away the pressure of the context for these individuals, of what might have been said to them beforehand, what pressures they might have felt with their own family members.”

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has confirmed that two additional people from the Iranian women’s football team have been granted asylum.

Mr Burke told reporters on Wednesday morning that of the two additional people, one was a player and the other was a support person.

“When I met with them, I made them the same offer that I had made the five players the night before, and that was that, if they wanted to receive a humanitarian visa for Australia – which would have a pathway to a permanent visa – I had the paperwork ready to execute that immediately,” he said.

Iran’s women’s soccer team arrived in Kuala Lumpu on a flight from Sydney after Australia granted some of their teammates humanitarian visas after they sought asylum over safety concerns on their return home for not singing the national anthem.

“They both said that they did. I signed off on that, asked the department to start processing straightaway and, overnight, processing happened.”

The rest of the delegation, with the exception of a few, had been taken aside at Gold Coast airport after going through customs and immigration, Mr Burke said.

Latika M Bourke writes: Former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s immediate support for Donald Trump’s war against Iran was purely out of political “cunning.”

And the Howard government veteran cabinet minister blasted revelations that Australian sailors on board a US submarine were sent to their cabins to avoid taking part in the sinking of an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean as “childish.”

Speaking exclusively to The Nightly, Mr Downer, who is Australia’s longest-serving foreign minister, said Mr Albanese’s decision was the right one and stood in contrast to the damage the UK’s Labour leader Keir Starmer who had degraded Britain’s standing to that of Belgium by opposing US action and refusing Pentagon access to military bases.

Australia and Canada’s swift and strong support for Mr Trump’s attempted regime change in Iran has been frequently cited by the British press, which has contrasted their position with Sir Keir, who initially refused the US permission to use British military bases and said he did not support “regime change from the air.”

He said he was pleased Mr Albanese was supporting our ally.

“And it’s not just an ally. The United States is the cornerstone of the Western Alliance, and so if you don’t support the cornerstone of the Western alliance you’re undermining the Western Alliance, so in that sense, I was pleased Mr Albanese did what he did; I thought it was good,” Mr Downer said.

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Defence Minister Richard Marles says while Australia’s recent deployment of military assets to the Middle East was in response to UAE’s call for support, the United States has also made requests during the conflict with Iran.

It comes after Anthony Albanese’s commitment on Tuesday to send the E-7A Wedgetail surveillance aircraft and an unspecified quantity of medium-range missiles, known as an AMRAAM.

Mr Marles said Australia had received a range of defensive capability-based requests since the US and Israel launched their attack on Iran late last month.

“The request that we’ve responded to is the UAE,” Mr Marles told ABC’s 7.30.

“I spoke to my counterpart in the UAE over the course of the weekend, and they were gratefully receiving the offer that we’ve made.

“A number of other countries, including the US have made requests which are centred on helping to provide for the defence of the Gulf countries.”

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British Airways has confirmed it is pulling flights to and from the Middle East, with a domino effect expected to cause chaos for flight routes around the world.

“Due to the continuing uncertainty of the situation in the Middle East and airspace instability, we’ve had to temporarily reduce our flying schedule in the region,” a statement said.

“We’ve cancelled all flights to and from Amman, Bahrain, Doha, Dubai and Tel Aviv until later this month and to and from Abu Dhabi until later this year.

British Airways did not share further details about those two frames.

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