By Joshua McElwee

ROME, March 18 (Reuters) - The Vatican's top diplomat on Wednesday called on U.S. President Donald Trump to end the expanding Iran war as soon as possible and suggested Israel should also stop its strikes against Lebanon.

"I would say to finish it as soon as possible ... and to leave alone Lebanon," Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a senior advisor to the American Pope Leo, said in an unusually direct appeal.

"This message goes also to the Israelis," he added, speaking to journalists at an event at the Italian parliament.

An international media association on Wednesday criticised an "unprovoked assault" by Israeli police on journalists in Jerusalem, which it said left a CNN producer with a fractured wrist.

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) said police officers on Tuesday night "unnecessarily and aggressively repelled a group of journalists who were doing their jobs, documenting individuals who were praying outside the walls of the Old City".

It said police detained several journalists, damaging photographic equipment and confiscating memory cards.

March 18 (Reuters) - Several loud bangs were heard in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Wednesday and some of the city's residents received phone alerts for the first time warning them of a hostile aerial threat, a Reuters witness in the city said.

(Reporting by Timour Azhari. Editing by Jane Merriman)

By Mohammad Yunus Yawar and Ariba Shahid

KABUL/KARACHI, March 18 (Reuters) - Former heroin user Nazar Mohammad said the Kabul rehabilitation centre bombed by Pakistan cured him of his drug addiction two years ago and helped keep him alive. He even stayed on to work there as a live-in carer for the 2,000 patients.

Now he fears he could relapse.

On Monday, he left the clinic and watched "as a plane dropped a bomb", he said. He rushed back to find a scene of devastation.

By Parisa Hafezi

DUBAI, March 18 (Reuters) - The killing of Iran's most influential powerbroker, Ali Larijani, has pushed the Islamic Republic into a more uncertain phase, complicating decision-making in Tehran and narrowing its options as the war grinds on.

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began with the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei alongside a group of military commanders, and shows no sign of abating, with several more senior officials now targeted by air strikes.

By Jonathan Saul

LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) - A proposal from the UN's shipping agency on Wednesday calls for a safe maritime corridor to free some 20,000 seafarers stranded in the Gulf by war in Iran.

Hundreds of vessels have dropped anchor since Tehran threatened to attack ships attempting to leave the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz.

The proposal submitted by Bahrain, Japan, Panama, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates and backed on Wednesday by the United States called for "a framework such as a safe maritime corridor".

MADRID, March 18 (Reuters) - Spain plans to evacuate and relocate troops deployed in Iraq in the coming days due to the conflict in Iran and the wider Gulf region, Defence Minister Margarita Robles said on Wednesday.

Around 300 Spanish troops are deployed in Iraq, both as part of an international coalition against the Islamic State formed in 2015 under Operation Inherent Resolve and a separate NATO mission advising Iraqi government forces since 2018.

The upheaval in Iran's leadership since the start of the war with Israel and the United States has further strengthened the political influence of the Islamic republic's ideological army, the Revolutionary Guards, analysts said.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was set up on the orders of revolution leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini shortly after the 1979 ousting of the shah, with a mandate separate from the regular armed forces to protect the revolution from internal and external threats.

WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) - The White House said on Wednesday that China had agreed to postpone U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to Beijing, originally scheduled in just two weeks.

Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that the White House was working to secure a new date for the visit as soon as possible.

Trump, citing the demands of the Iran war, said on Tuesday that he would take the trip to Asia in "about five or six weeks" but did not specify a date.

DUBAI, March 18 (Reuters) - Facilities belonging to Iran's oil industry in South Pars and Asaluyeh were attacked on Wednesday, Iranian state media said, prompting Tehran to warn that it would target energy installations across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

Oil prices jumped on the news, with Brent crude futures gaining more than 6% to a session high just shy of $110 per barrel. Analysts have warned that any attack in South Pars would raise the possibility of retaliatory attacks by Iran on Gulf energy facilities including those belonging to oil majors in Qatar.