Israel launched a new wave of strikes on Tehran on Sunday and Iran responded with more missile barrages, a day after the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei pitched the Middle East and the global economy into deepening uncertainty.
U.S. and Israeli strikes – and Iranian retaliation – sent shockwaves through sectors from shipping to air travel to oil, amid warnings of rising energy costs and disruption to business in the Gulf, a strategic waterway and global trade hub.
U.S. President Donald Trump has said the attack was intended to ensure Iran could not have a nuclear weapon, to contain its missile program and to eliminate threats to the United States and its allies.
In an interview with the Atlantic magazine on Sunday, Trump, who has encouraged the Iranian people to topple their government, said Iran’s leadership wanted to talk to him and he had agreed.
But he has yet to lay out his longer-term aims in Iran, which faces a power vacuum that could leave it in chaos, with unforeseeable consequences for the region.
As the first U.S. casualties were reported, and with the vital Strait of Hormuz closed and the glittering Gulf cities of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha under bombardment, the scale of the risk taken by Trump in launching the attack was becoming clearer.
Only around one in four Americans approve of the operation, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Sunday, and if Hormuz, which is the passage for about 20% of world oil supplies, remains closed for more than a few days, squeezed U.S. consumers will start to feel the pressure on prices at the pumps, months before vital midterm elections.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday they had hit three U.S. and UK oil tankers in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, and attacked military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain with drones and missiles. Shipping data showed hundreds of vessels including oil and gas tankers dropping anchor in nearby waters with traders expecting sharp jumps in crude oil prices on Monday.
Global air travel was also heavily disrupted as continued air strikes kept major Middle Eastern airports, including Dubai – the world’s busiest international hub – closed in one of the biggest aviation interruptions in recent years.
In Iran, facing its biggest existential challenge since the 1980-88 war with Iraq, President Masoud Pezeshkian said a leadership council composed of himself, the judiciary head and a member of the powerful Guardians Council had temporarily assumed the duties of Supreme Leader.
Oman’s foreign ministry said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had indicated that Tehran was open to any serious efforts at de-escalation.
But it remained unclear what the longer-term prospects were for Iran to rebuild its leadership and replace the 86-year-old Khamenei, who had held power since the death of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989.
Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced Khamenei’s death, opens new tab as a cynical murder and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi described it as “blatant killing”.
Israel, which has pressed successive U.S. administrations to take action against Iran, claimed responsibility for killing Khamenei, in what it said was a “precise, large-scale operation” guided by intelligence, while he was in his central leadership compound in the heart of Tehran.
It said it aimed to dominate the skies over Tehran, giving no sign of planning an end to the biggest aerial operation in its history, involving hundreds of fighter jets.
“We have the capabilities and the targets to keep going on for as long as necessary,” Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said.
IRAN HITS BACK
Trump warned that the U.S. would hit Iran “with a force that has never been seen before” if it struck back.
But as Iran fired renewed missile barrages across the region, Israel’s ambulance service said nine people were killed in the town of Beit Shemesh, the United Arab Emirates said Iranian attacks killed three people and Kuwait reported one dead.
Three U.S. service personnel were also killed and five seriously wounded, the first American casualties of the operation, the U.S. military said.
Trump said on social media the U.S. military had destroyed nine Iranian warships so far and was “going after the rest.”
Inside Iran, some grieved for Khamenei while others celebrated his death, exposing a deep fault line in a country stunned by the sudden demise of the man who ruled for decades.
Thousands of Iranians were killed in a crackdown authorised by Khamenei against anti-government protests in January, the deadliest wave of unrest since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Footage from Tehran showed mourners packed into a square, dressed in black and many of them weeping.
But videos posted on social media also showed joy and defiance elsewhere, with people cheering as a statue was toppled in the city of Dehloran in Ilam province, dancing in the streets of Karaj city, near Tehran in Alborz province, and celebrating in the streets of Izeh in Khuzestan province. Reuters has verified the locations of these videos.
Khamenei, who built Iran into a powerful anti-U.S. force and spread its sway across the Middle East during his 36-year iron-fisted rule, was working in his office at the time of Saturday’s attack, state media said. The raid also killed his daughter, grandchild, daughter-in-law and son-in-law.
Two U.S. sources and a U.S. official familiar with the matter said Israel and the U.S. timed their attack on Saturday to coincide with a meeting Khamenei was holding with top aides.
Experts said that while his death and those of other Iranian leaders would deal Iran a major blow, it would not necessarily spell the end of Iran’s entrenched clerical rule or the sway of the elite Revolutionary Guards over the population.
As supreme leader, Khamenei held ultimate power in Iran, acting as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and deciding on the direction of foreign policy, defined largely by confrontation with the United States and Israel.
His death sparked protests among Shi’ites in neighbouring Pakistan, where police clashed with demonstrators who breached the outer wall of the U.S. consulate in Karachi, leaving nine people dead. In Iraq, police fired tear gas and stun grenades to scatter hundreds of protesters who gathered outside the Green Zone in Baghdad, where the U.S. Embassy is located. (BBC News)
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