A new investigation by the New York Times has shed more light on events surrounding a reported attack on a school in Iran at the start of the Middle East war.

Iran has accused Israel and the United States of conducting a strike on an elementary school in the southern city of Minab, which it said killed more than 150 people.

US President Donald Trump has blamed Iran, while the Pentagon has said it is investigating the incident.

AFP has been unable to access the location to independently verify the circumstances or the toll from any such incident.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that 11 countries had tapped Kyiv for help in how to counter Iranian drones being fired by Tehran in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes.

Ukraine has to fend off nightly barrages of Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones launched by Russia, an ally of Tehran.

They now being used in strikes across the Middle East.

Sri Lanka and India are providing sanctuary to 434 sailors from three Iranian naval vessels targeted or threatened by the United States, a diplomatic conundrum as the war spills into the Indian Ocean.

The ships had taken part in a naval exercise organised by India off the coast of Visakhapatnam, when the United States and Israel began bombing Iran.

For Sri Lanka and India, wary of a US response, the dilemma of what to do with the ships and crew has sent legal officials scouring conventions and the laws of the sea.

- What happened? -

March 9 (Reuters) - Kuwait held a military funeral on Monday for two interior ministry officials it said were killed "while performing their duty".

The state - which hosts U.S. military installations and has come under Iranian drone and missile fire during Tehran's war with Israel and the U.S. - said the two men died early on Sunday, but did not go into further details.

Kuwait's army separately said areas near the international airport were hit on Sunday and its forces had intercepted missiles and drones.

NATO said it shot down a second ballistic missile fired from Iran in Turkish airspace on Monday, prompting a stern warning from Turkey to Tehran not to take "provocative steps".

It was the second such incident in the skies over NATO member Turkey in five days, leading the alliance to stress its readiness "to defend all allies against any threat".

Washington meanwhile urged all American citizens to leave southeastern Turkey, where US troops are stationed at several bases.

By Parisa Hafezi and Angus McDowall

DUBAI, March 9 (Reuters) - Iran's new supreme leader faces a massive external assault and growing internal anger at a time when the backing of the diehard ideologues who supported his predecessors is less clear than before.

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who has deep influence inside Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and their vast business networks, survived the ‌U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran in which his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed more than a week ago.

From their hideouts in the Iraqi mountains near Iran, leftist Kurdish rebels say they are ready to fight the Islamic republic, but hope for an uprising before they intervene, with or without US support.

After saying that he would be "all for" a Kurdish offensive on Iran, US President Donald Trump appeared to backtrack Saturday, saying he did not want such an attack.

Senior commander Roken Nerada of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) told AFP: "If there is an attack on the Kurdish people... then with every means... we are ready to resist as we always have."

The Iran war sent oil prices soaring on Monday after Tehran, under new leader Mojtaba Khamanei, fired a new barrage of missiles at its Gulf neighbours and signalled that the strategic Strait of Hormuz would likely remain shut.

On the first day in power for Khamanei, the 56-year-old son of slain leader Ali Khamenei, Iranian troops mustered another wave of missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Israel.

OSLO, March 9 (Reuters) - Norwegian police are searching for a suspect seen on surveillance footage following an explosion during the weekend at the U.S. embassy in Oslo, investigators said on Monday.

The early Sunday morning blast damaged one of the entrances to the embassy, sending thick smoke into the street but causing no injuries, in what police said may have been linked to the crisis in the Middle East.

DUBAI, March 9 (Reuters) - Lebanon’s parliament extended its own mandate for two years on Monday, a statement from the speaker's office said, pushing back elections that were meant to take place in May of this year.

The office of parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri said 76 lawmakers of the 128-seat body had voted in favour of the extension. The vote came a week after Lebanon was dragged into the regional war by militant group Hezbollah's launch of rockets and drones into Israel, which has responded with heavy bombardment across the country.