Two attack helicopters, their forward-facing guns silhouetted against Doha's clear blue sky, flew low over the city's cruise ship terminal as stranded passengers boarded buses and cars on Saturday for Riyadh, hoping to catch flights home.

"Eight days we are here in Doha and it's enough. We want to go home," Meral, 47, who lives near Dusseldorf told AFP as she and her partner Hussein, 52, wheeled their bags to a waiting private car to speed them to Saudi Arabia.

For a moment Tehran resembled a city at peace, with birdsong, joggers and tranquil views of the snow-capped Alborz mountains in the distance. Then the sound of another explosion ripped through the air.

A week ago, opening strikes by the US and Israel killed Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, upended residents' lives and transformed the city streets into a battleground.

In Tehran's west, a block that belonged to the security forces had been blasted apart, and the entire surrounding area was choked with rubble.

DUBAI, March 7 (Reuters) - The president of the United Arab Emirates said his nation was in a time of war but was well and told his enemies it was no easy prey, in his first public comments since Iran launched missiles at its Gulf neighbour amid U.S.-Israeli strikes.

"The UAE has thick skin and bitter flesh - we are no easy prey," Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is also ruler of Abu Dhabi, said in comments, made on Friday when visiting those injured in strikes, aired on Abu Dhabi TV on Saturday.

The United States has started using British bases for certain operations against Iran during the Middle East war, the UK government announced Saturday.

Britain's defence ministry said the US had begun using the military sites for "specific defensive operations to prevent Iran firing missiles into the region".

Later Saturday, US President Donald Trump rejected what he said were British plans to possibly send two aircraft carriers to the region -- hours after having mocked Prime Minister Keir Starmer for his initial reluctance to get involved in the conflict.

With further negotiations pencilled in with the US and perhaps assuming that any assassination attempt would take place at night, Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei was at his complex in Tehran last Saturday morning. It would be his last.

An air strike obliterated the compound in Tehran where a gathering of key decision-makers was taking place, killing Khamenei, his wife and other top officials.

March 7 (Reuters) - Ukrainian manufacturers of cheap interceptor drones designed to knock out enemy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) say they have the capacity to export in large volumes, amid enquiries from the United States and Middle East prompted by the Iran war.

Hundreds of drones based on Iran's Shahed model and now made in Russia fill Ukraine's skies during frequent attacks, and many are downed by air defences including Western missiles, fighter jets, truck-mounted guns and interceptor drones.

ANKARA, March 7 (Reuters) - Turkey is considering the deployment of F-16 aircraft to Cyprus, a Turkish defence ministry source said on Saturday.

The person said such a move was one of the steps being considered amid the phased planning underway to ensure the security of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in the north of the island, as conflict spreads in the region.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

By Maya Gebeily and Alexander Cornwell

BEIRUT/TEL AVIV, March 7 (Reuters) - Israel warned Lebanon of a "very heavy price" if it did not rein in Iran-backed Hezbollah on Saturday, as it pounded the group's strongholds around the country with air strikes and mounted a deadly airborne raid in the east.

Lebanon was dragged into the wider Middle East war on Monday when Hezbollah fired at Israel, which responded with a new military campaign that has forced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their homes.

By Joshua McElwee

VATICAN CITY, March 7 (Reuters) - Pope Leo on Saturday named a senior Church diplomat who represented the Vatican in the Philippines during former President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs as the Vatican's U.S. ambassador and envoy to the Trump administration.

Italian Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, 68, served for two years in Manila before becoming the Vatican's U.N. ambassador in 2020.

TEL AVIV, March 7 (Reuters) - Lebanese Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah on Saturday warned residents of a northern Israeli city near the border with Lebanon to evacuate and head south.

Hezbollah did not specify what action, if any, it planned to take against the city, which lies only a few kilometres from the border.

"Warning. All residents of Kiryat Shmona are asked to evacuate immediately. Head south," it said in a statement.