An attack on Turkey, a NATO member that shares a 300-mile border with Iran, could mark a major escalation and could activate the alliance’s mutual defense clause, potentially drawing its 32 member states into the war. So far the United Kingdom, France and Greece have said they are deploying military assets to the region only to defend their citizens and interests.

Separately, a torpedo launched from a U.S. Navy submarine sank an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka on Wednesday, marking the first time a U.S. submarine had fired a torpedo at an enemy ship in combat since World War II, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said. Sri Lankan officials said on Thursday that their navy had rescued more than 30 people, recovered more than 80 bodies and was still searching for dozens of people.

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, on Thursday accused the United States of an “atrocity at sea,” saying on social media that the Iranian frigate had been struck in international waters without warning. “Mark my words: The U.S. will come to bitterly regret precedent it has set,” he said.

In Washington, the House was expected on Thursday to vote down a motion to rein in President Trump’s war powers, a day after the Senate rejected a similar measure in a vote split almost entirely along party lines.

Mr. Hegseth told reporters on Wednesday that American and Israeli warplanes would soon gain total control of Iranian airspace, allowing them to pick off targets and deliver “death and destruction all day long.”

Overnight, the Israeli military announced another wave of strikes on Tehran and on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Officials in Qatar said residents who lived near the U.S. Embassy in Doha were being evacuated as a precautionary measure, and Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said its forces intercepted and destroyed several drones over the country.

Here’s what else we’re covering:

• Supreme leader: Iran’s top clerics are considering their choice to replace the country’s slain supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike on Saturday. Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appears to be a front-runner to succeed his father. Read more ›

• Market rally: Stocks across most of Asia rallied on Thursday, a day after tumbling over fears around the region’s heavy reliance on imported oil and gas. The turnaround illustrates the hair-trigger reactions of investors around the world who are trying to assess the immediate and possible long-term effects of the strikes on Iran and the repercussions around the Persian Gulf, where much of the world’s oil and gas is produced. Read more ›

• China’s oil exports: Officials from China’s top economic policy agency told Chinese companies on Thursday to suspend exports of refined oil, according to Guo Shiying, a senior executive at a state-owned investment firm. China, the largest buyer of Iranian oil, will send a special envoy to the Middle East to help conduct conflict mediation efforts, its foreign ministry earlier said.

• Americans killed: Six U.S. service members have been killed in the conflict. The Defense Department on Wednesday night released the name of a fifth American killed in an Iranian attack on Sunday, and released the name of another soldier believed to have died in the same incident. The department on Tuesday had released the names of the other four killed. Read more ›

• Evacuations: The White House press secretary said that 17,500 Americans had returned safely since the start of the war, and the U.S. State Department ordered more employees to leave their posts at embassies and consulates in four countries, after facing criticism for not doing enough to facilitate evacuations.

• Death toll: The Red Crescent Society, Iran’s main humanitarian relief organization, said the death toll had risen to 787 since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attacks. The bombing of a girls’ elementary school in Iran killed at least 175 people. Dozens of people in Lebanon also have been killed, according to the Lebanese health ministry, in Israel’s retaliatory strikes against Hezbollah.

  After three days of intense volatility following the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, global stock markets stabilized and the price of oil rose more modestly on Thursday than in recent days. Europe’s benchmark index, the Stoxx Europe 600, was flat and futures suggested the S&P 500 would open slightly higher when trading opens in New York at 9:30 a.m Eastern. Earlier on Thursday, stock markets in Asia jumped, reversing steep declines from the previous two days.

  But concerns about the impact of a surge in energy prices were still hanging over markets. As investors contemplated the risk of a resurgence in inflation, which could lead to higher interest rates, the price of government bonds fell, pushing their yields higher. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading at about $82 a barrel after rising earlier in the day.

  Oman, which had been mediating talks between the United States and Iran to avert a war, said it was working with airlines and governments to help stranded travelers seeking to be evacuated from the Persian Gulf region.

  A number of repatriation flights for stranded travelers in the region have already left from the country. The airport in Muscat, the country’s capital, is about 280 miles from Dubai, which has shut its airport for most commercial services since the U.S-Israel attack on Iran.

  “The Omani government is working with your governments and international airlines to organise flights to get you home,” Badr Albusaidi, Oman’s foreign minister, said on social media. “We mean everyone, whatever passport you hold.”

  The Iranian warship that an American submarine torpedoed on Wednesday had recently taken part in a naval exercise hosted by India. India hosted the large peacetime exercise from Feb. 15 to 25 and has yet to issue a formal statement on the fate of the crew.

  The leader of India’s political opposition faulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the government’s subsequent silence.

  “The conflict has reached our backyard, with an Iranian warship sunk in the Indian Ocean. Yet the prime minister has said nothing,” Rahul Gandhi wrote on social media.

  A second Iranian ship is floating inside Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone, a senior politician told the country’s Parliament on Thursday. An E.E.Z. is a stretch of sea beyond a country’s borders over which it has sovereign rights to explore and use maritime resources under United Nations rules.

  Cabinet spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa said authorities were “intervening for peace and to reduce loss of lives and resolve the problem,” adding that the IRIS Dena was also inside Sri Lanka’s E.E.Z. when the United States torpedoed it on Wednesday.

  The opposition leader Sajith Premadasa criticized the ship’s presence, saying a county’s E.E.Z. “is for peaceful purposes, not for military action” and calling it “a death blow to our sovereignty.”

  Two drones launched from Iran fell in the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhchivan on Thursday, according to Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry. One drone struck the terminal building of the local airport and the other landed near a school, and two civilians were injured, the ministry said. Azerbaijan has long had a strained relationship with neighboring Iran due to historical grievances.Iranian missiles struck the camp of an Iranian Kurdish force based in neighboring Iraq on Thursday morning, according to an official from the Komala Party who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Several missiles struck the camp, he said, but no one was injured. Komala is one of several Iranian Kurdish groups that have said they were readying, with some U.S. backing, to enter Iran to try to launch an insurgency.

  U.S. gasoline prices continue to climb, rising another five cents per gallon on Thursday, according to the AAA motor club. The average price of unleaded gasoline hit $3.25 a gallon, the highest level since April last year. At the start of the week, it was $3 per gallon.

  Oil prices resumed their rise after taking a breather yesterday, and the downstream effect on gasoline prices has been quicker than many analysts anticipated. The price of Brent Crude oil, the international benchmark, reached $84 per barrel, up sharply from around $72 a barrel before the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran began to disrupt shipping in the Persian Gulf, a crucial source of the world’s oil, gas and related energy products.

  U.S. average price of unleaded gasoline

  Australia deployed military assets to the Middle East as a contingency measure earlier in the week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told parliament on Thursday. He did not provide further details.

  Iran’s military denied on Thursday launching a missile at neighboring Turkey. A statement published by the state news broadcaster said “the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran respect the sovereignty of the neighboring and friendly country, Turkey, and deny any missile launch toward that country’s territory.”

  NATO forces intercepted the missile on Wednesday, and the potential attack was believed to have originated from Iran.

  Sri Lankan security forces on Thursday patrolled the Galle National Hospital, one of the country’s largest hospitals, where 32 sailors rescued from the IRIS Dena, the Iranian warship torpedoed by the United States, are recovering. The survivors are being kept in the hospital’s emergency ward on the third floor after being treated for burn injuries as well as cuts and scrapes. Only one survivor is in critical condition, according to a hospital official. As of Thursday, 84 bodies have been recovered, while the Sri Lanka Navy was still searching for 64 sailors.

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