All six crew members of a US Air Force refueling aircraft have been confirmed killed after it was shot down by resistance groups in western Iraq on Thursday.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed the deaths in a post on the social media platform X on Friday, hours after it reported that the KC-135 refueling aircraft had gone down in western Iraq.

It said at the time that four of the six crew members on board were killed.

CENTCOM also claimed that “the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.”

The aircraft, however, was targeted and struck by a missile fired by the Resistance Front in western Iraq, according to a statement issued by the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters of Iran on Thursday night.

In a separate statement, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that the aircraft was intercepted and destroyed while it was in the middle of a refueling mission for an “aggressor fighter jet.”

The incident has brought the number of US troops killed, as per the Pentagon data, to at least 13 since the US and the Israeli regime launched an unprovoked war against Iran on February 28.

Ever since, Iraqi resistance groups have been carrying out daily attacks on US assets in Iraq and across the region.

The KC-135 is at least the fourth known US military aircraft lost during the war with Iran.

At least three F-15 aircraft were also shot down over Kuwait.

Many observers see the latest incident as a major blow to the US military.

They argue that by targeting the refueling aircraft, the Resistance Front has struck the logistical backbone of US aerial operations, proving that American air superiority is no longer unchallenged in the region.

In an English seaside village, researchers discuss options for relocating a graveyard threatened with slipping into the sea, or moving back a car park perilously close to a cliff edge.

The team from the Coastwise project have been granted over £15 million ($20 million) in government funding to adapt the coastline in North Norfolk, eastern England, to accelerating erosion worsened by climate change.

There is one caveat: it cannot spend that money on traditional coastal defences like sea walls or rock-filled cages known as gabions.

Instead, the team is assessing the best ways to lose at-risk homes to the sea and helping better inform cliffside property purchases.

Some measures it has considered include selective buyouts, government insurance schemes, replacing houses with mobile homes and early warning systems for when people may have to vacate their residences.

“It is quite groundbreaking… different countries are trying different things, but there’s nothing quite similar,” Robert Goodliffe from Coastwise told AFP.

“It will take a shift in how we think about this,” he added.

For decades, the default approach in Britain and elsewhere was to “hold the line” against erosion using human-made defences.

But, with some defences reaching the end of their design life and sea levels rising, the government and coastal experts warn the tide cannot be held back everywhere.

The UK’s Environment Agency has determined some communities on the soft, sandy eastern English coast — among the fastest-eroding in Europe — will need to conduct a “managed retreat” and move back from the shoreline.

The government is funding pilots like Coastwise, tasked with preparing parts of the coastline that may not be defended in the future.

“When it comes to building a defence there’s a process and a system, and a way of applying for funding,” explained Sophie Day, a coastal adaptation specialist working on the project.

“But when it comes to losing places, there isn’t”.

Creeping anxiety

The team hopes measures it assesses in Norfolk, like the logistics and legal complications of exhuming bodies and moving a graveyard, can be applied to other parts of the country.

But some locals feel the government’s managed retreat policy is failing communities at imminent risk.

Shelley Cowlin’s home of five decades was demolished in January after winter storms lashed the coast of a resort in Suffolk, eastern England.

“On the cliff top, here, lovely, big white house… which gave me a fantastic view,” Cowlin, 89, told AFP in Thorpeness, where 10 clifftop properties have been demolished since October.

In January, a wall at the edge of her property was destroyed in a storm, the gabions “floated away” and “the gate was just swinging and all very sad”.

“They won’t give you any money,” she said, criticising the government for the lack of compensation.

As she spoke, a bulldozer was breaking down another residence in the holiday village, which the government has recommended should move back from the coast rather than invest in more defences.

Shelley’s son, Simon Carrick Cowlin, described creeping anxiety as neighbouring houses were pulled down.

“When’s it my turn? … A horrible space to be living in,” said Simon.

“Any defences that have been put in historically or that will continue to be put in will (only) slow down the erosion, it cannot stop it,” said local councillor Katie Graham.

“We do need more money, we do need more support from government. This is a very urgent situation,” she added.

‘Far-sighted’

Thorpeness residents say storms have grown fiercer, as scientists warn climate change will make such extreme weather more intense and frequent.

“In the UK we seem to (be) like: I’ll just let the sea take what it wants,” said Craig Block, the boatman at Thorpeness’ lake.

Local Nicholas Millor said it was a “traumatic time” for the small village with some 130 residents and dozens of holiday homes.

The community had to prepare “for a much more liminal, uncertain kind of future”, he said.

“What Thorpeness is going through now is a microcosm, is an example actually of what many, many communities will go through.”

But experts insist costly traditional defences will not solve erosion, and that adaptation projects like Coastwise are needed to help communities move away from the coastline.

According to climate adaptation researcher Robert Nicholls, the government’s policy is “deliberately experimental” and “translating these ideas elsewhere is a good idea”.

“They’re trying to learn what can and can’t be done. They’re trying to innovate,” said the University of East Anglia professor.

“To me, it seems very rational that you follow the approach that Britain’s doing… I think it’s quite wise and far-sighted.

A complex tug-of-war inside the White House is driving US President Donald Trump’s shifting public statements on the course of the Iran war, as aides debate when and how to declare victory even as the conflict spreads across the Middle East.

Some officials and advisers are warning Trump that surging gasoline prices could exact a political cost from the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, while some hawks are pressing the president to maintain the offensive against the Islamic Republic, according to interviews with a Trump adviser and others close to the deliberations.

Their observations to Reuters offer a previously unreported glimpse inside White House decision-making as it adjusts its approach to the biggest US military operation since the 2003 Iraq war.

Shifting messages, various internal viewpoints

The behind-the-scenes manoeuvring underscores the high stakes Trump, who returned to office last year promising to avoid “stupid” military interventions, faces nearly two weeks after plunging the nation into a war that has rattled global financial markets and disrupted the international oil trade.

The jockeying for Trump’s ear is a feature of his presidency, but this time the consequences are a matter of war and peace in one of the world’s most volatile and economically critical regions.

Shifting from the sweeping goals he framed in launching the war on February 28, Trump in recent days has emphasised that he views the conflict as a limited campaign whose objectives have mostly been met.

But the message remains unclear to many, including the energy markets, which have lurched in both directions in response to Trump’s statements.

He told a campaign-style rally in Kentucky on Wednesday that “we won” the war, then abruptly pivoted: “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job.”

Economic advisers and officials, including from the Treasury Department and the National Economic Council, have warned Trump that an oil shock and rising gasoline prices could quickly erode domestic support for the war, said the adviser and two others close to the deliberations, speaking on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal discussions.

Political advisers, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and deputy chief James Blair, are making similar arguments, focusing on the political fallout from higher gas prices and urging Trump ⁠to define victory narrowly and signal the operation is limited and nearly finished, the sources said.

Pushing in the other direction are hawkish voices urging Trump to sustain military pressure on Iran, including Republican lawmakers such as US Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, and media commentators such as Mark Levin, according to people familiar with the matter.

They argue the US must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and respond forcefully to attacks on American troops and shipping.

A third force comes from Trump’s populist base and figures such as strategist Steve Bannon and right-wing television personality Tucker Carlson, who have been pressing him and his top aides to avoid getting dragged into another prolonged Middle East conflict.

“He is allowing the hawks to believe the campaign continues, wants markets to believe the war might end soon and his base to believe escalation will be limited,” the Trump adviser said.

Asked for comment, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement: “This story is based on gossip and speculation from anonymous sources who aren’t even in the room for any discussions with President Trump.

“The President is known for being a good listener and seeking the opinions of many people, but ultimately everyone knows he’s the final decision maker and his own best messenger,” she said. “The President’s entire team is focused on ensuring the objectives of Operation Epic Fury are fully achieved.”

Other people named for their roles in the deliberations did not immediately respond to Reuters’ questions.

Looking for an exit

In taking America to war, Trump offered little explanation, and the administration’s stated war aims have ranged from thwarting an imminent attack by Iran to crippling its nuclear programme to replacing its government.

As he seeks an exit from an unpopular conflict, Trump is trying to juggle competing narratives that some critics say have complicated an already difficult situation, with Iran defiant despite the devastating US-Israeli air assault.

Top political aides and economic advisers, whose warnings before the war of the potential economic shock were largely ignored, appear to have played a major role in pushing Trump’s efforts this week to reassure skittish markets and contain rising oil and gas prices.

His public shift to downplaying the war’s impact, describing it as a “short-term excursion,” and his insistence that ⁠gas price hikes would be short-lived appeared aimed at calming fears of an open-ended conflict.

Some top aides have advised him to work toward a conclusion to the conflict that he can call a triumph, at least militarily, the sources said, even if much of the Iranian leadership survives, along with remnants of a nuclear program that the campaign was meant to target.

Wave after wave of US and Israeli air strikes have killed a number of top Iranian leaders among some 2,000 people overall — some as far away as Lebanon – devastated its ballistic missile arsenal, sunk much of its navy and degraded its ability to support armed proxies around the Middle East.

But the military achievements have been seriously undercut by Iran’s stepped-up attacks on oil tankers and transport facilities in the Gulf, driving up oil prices.

Trump has said he will decide when to end the campaign. He and his aides say they are far ahead of the four- to six-week timeframe Trump initially announced.

The shifting reasons for launching the conflict, which has spilt over into more than half a dozen other countries, have only made it more difficult to predict what comes next.

For their part, Iran’s rulers will claim victory, analysts say, for simply ⁠surviving the US-Israeli onslaught, especially after demonstrating their ability to fight back and inflict damage on Israel, the US and its allies.

Venezuela miscalculation

Critical to the war’s final trajectory will be the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the world’s oil shipments, which normally traverse the narrow waterway, have come to a near-standstill.

Iran, in recent days, has struck tankers in Iraqi waters and other ships near the strait, and the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has vowed to keep it shut.

If Iran’s stranglehold on the waterway pushes US gas prices high enough, that could increase political pressure on Trump to end the military campaign to help his Republican Party, which is defending narrow majorities in Congress in November’s midterm elections.

Trump has recently refrained from pushing the idea that the war seeks to topple the ⁠government in Tehran. US intelligence indicates that Iran’s leadership is not at risk of collapse anytime soon, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

At least some of the confusion over the war’s trajectory appears rooted in the quick US military success in Venezuela.

Since the start of the war, some aides have struggled to convince Trump that the Iran campaign was unlikely to unfold in the same way as the January 3 Venezuela raid that captured President Nicolas Maduro, according to another source familiar with the administration’s thinking.

That operation opened the way for Trump to coerce former Maduro loyalists into giving him considerable sway over the country’s vast oil reserves – without requiring extended US military action.

Iran, by contrast, has proved a much tougher, better-armed foe with an entrenched ⁠clerical and security establishment.

Experts have rejected claims by Trump aides that Iran had been within weeks of being able to produce a nuclear weapon, despite the president’s insistence in June that US-Israeli bombing had “obliterated” its nuclear program.

Most of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to have been buried by the June strikes, meaning the material potentially could be retrieved and purified to bomb grade. Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons.

If the war drags on, American casualties mount and the economic costs multiply, some analysts say it could erode backing from Trump’s political base. But despite criticism from some supporters opposed to military interventions, members of his “Make America Great Again” movement have so far largely stayed with him on Iran.

“The MAGA base is going to give the president wiggle room,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.