US-Isreal strikes on Iran
By Our Reporter
US president, Donald Trump told Fox News on Sunday that 48 leaders have been killed in US and Israeli strikes on Iran. He also told CNBC that US military operations in Iran are “ahead of schedule.”
The US has destroyed nine Iranian navy ships and largely destroyed Iran’s naval headquarters, Trump said on social media.
Three American service members have been killed in action as part of the Iran operation, according to the US military’s Central Command.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the firebrand former Iranian president, who gained international notoriety by calling for Israel’s erasure and denying the Holocaust, appears to have been killed in Saturday’s military strikes, according to local media.
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said today that despite the attacks on his country, “nothing has changed in our ‘military capability.’
Trump said that the US would strike Iran “with a force that has never been seen before” if Tehran carried out threats to retaliate after the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed yesterday. Trump has urged Iranians to “take back their country”.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said the killing of Khamenei was “a cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law”.
Other senior figures in the Iranian regime who were killed in Saturday’s strikes reportedly include the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Gen Mohammad Pakpour, and defence minister Aziz Nasirzadeh. Israel says at least 40 Iranian “commanders” were killed in the “opening” strikes.
All three members have now been appointed to Iran’s temporary leadership council, which fulfills the role of the supreme leader until a successor is chosen.
It means the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, the judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, and senior cleric Alireza Arafi will reportedly lead Iran in the transitional period following Khamenei’s death.
The death toll from a US-Israeli missile strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran has risen to almost 150, according to Iranian state media.
At least 133 civilians have been killed and 200 civilians injured during US-Israel strikes on Iran on Saturday, according to the US-based organisation HRANA (Human Rights Activists News Agency).
Iran has launched retaliatory missiles and drones targeting Israel. Strikes have also been reported in Dubai, Qatar’s capital Doha, Bahrain and Kuwait. Officials in Tel Aviv said about 40 buildings were damaged and two people reportedly killed.
Hundreds of thousands of travellers were either stranded or diverted to other airports after Israel, Qatar, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain closed their airspace.
Ships have reported hearing a radio broadcast purporting to come from the Iranian navy announcing that transit through the vital strait of Hormuz, was banned, raising expectations of a sharp jump in oil prices. But there’s been no formal announcement from Tehran about the status of the strait, one of the world’s most important shipping routes.
Iran has launched a new round of missile and drone attacks targeting Israel and several Gulf cities, after vowing retaliation for the killing of supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who had ruled the country since 1989.
In a statement posted to social media, the Israel Defense Forces said it was now striking “targets” of the Iranian “regime in the heart of Tehran”.
Multiple rounds of sirens were heard across central Israel and parts of the occupied West Bank on Sunday morning, and explosions were reported in Doha, Dubai and Manama. Blasts were also heard near Erbil airport, which hosts US-led coalition troops, in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.
Iranian state media announced the deaths of several high-level military officials, including armed forces chief of staff Abdolrahim Mousavi, defence minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, Revolutionary Guards chief Mohammad Pakpour, and head of the defence council Ali Shamkhani, saying they were killed “during a defence council meeting”. More names would follow, it said.
Thousands of people have gathered in central Tehran to mourn the death of Khamenei, who had ruled Iran since 1989. Mourners, who were dressed in black and carried photos of the former leader, chanted “death to America” and “death to Israel”. However, others celebrated, with reports describing people cheering from rooftops, blowing whistles and letting out ululations.
Protesters rallied in support of Iran in several cities, attempting to storm the US consulate in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, and to enter the fortified Green Zone of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, where the US embassy is located. Thousands also rallied in Indian-administered Kashmir on Sunday.
The UK’s defence secretary, John Healey, said Iranian missiles and drones had landed within “a few hundred yards” of about 300 British troops at a base in Bahrain.
The United Nations’ nuclear agency said it will hold an extraordinary meeting on Monday at the request of Russia.
Credit: The Guardian UK apart from headline
