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Trump Levels New Threats on Iran 03/13 06:20
Iran launched multiple attacks early Friday on Gulf Arab states, including
dozens of drones at Saudi Arabia, following warnings from its new supreme
leader about hosting American bases, and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened
major new retaliation.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Iran launched multiple attacks early
Friday on Gulf Arab states, including dozens of drones at Saudi Arabia,
following warnings from its new supreme leader about hosting American bases,
and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened major new retaliation.
"Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today," Trump wrote in a post
on his social media platform Truth Social. "Iran's Navy is gone, their Air
Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated,
and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth."
The comments came the day after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei
vowed to "not refrain from avenging the blood" of Iranians killed, and warned
Gulf Arab nations to shut U.S. bases, saying the notion of American protection
was "nothing more than a lie."
A large midday explosion rocked a Tehran square filled with demonstrators
who were there for the annual Quds Day event in support of Palestinians,
Iranian state television reported.
The cause of the blast in the area of Ferdowsi Square wasn't immediately
known, but came shortly after Israel had warned people to clear the area
because it planned a strike. There were no immediate reports of casualties or
damage.
Ongoing attacks didn't deter thousands of people taking to the streets for
Quds Day, with crowds chanting "death to Israel" and "death to America."
Footage from the square showed people shouting "God is the greatest" as
smoke rose.
The U.S. military's Central Command said that four of six crew members of an
American KC-135 refueling plane that went down in Iraq had been found dead and
that recovery efforts were ongoing to find the other two. And a French soldier
who was stationed in the north of the country was killed in an attack, the
French president said Friday.
With growing global concerns about a possible energy crisis and no end to
the war in sight, the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard,
remained over $100 per barrel as Iran kept its stranglehold on shipping through
the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway through which a fifth of the
world's oil transits on its way from the Persian Gulf to the open seas.
Brent prices have spiked as high as about $120 per barrel and are about 40%
higher than when Israel and the United States attacked Iran on Feb. 28 to start
the war.
Iran has been attacking ships that try to transit the strait, and Khamenei's
comments -- his first to the public since being named to replace his father,
who was killed during the first day of the conflict -- said that Iran would
continue to block the waterway.
In Turkey, NATO defenses intercepted another ballistic missile fired from
Iran, the third time since the war began. Residents in the southern city of
Adana reported hearing a loud explosion and sirens sounding at Incirlik Air
Base, which is used by U.S. forces, in the early hours of the day.
Turkey's Defense Ministry said that the missile was destroyed by NATO air
defenses deployed in the eastern Mediterranean.
New attacks on Gulf nations
Iran has been attacking oil and other infrastructure around the Gulf region,
and on Friday Saudi Arabia that it had downed nearly 50 drones sent in multiple
waves.
In Oman, two people were killed when two drones crashed in an industrial
area in the region of Sohar, the Oman News Agency reported.
Sirens also sounded in Bahrain warning of incoming fire, and black smoke
billowed from an industrial area in Dubai, after a blaze that authorities said
was sparked by debris from an interception.
A building at the Dubai International Financial Center also sustained damage
when hit with debris from what authorities described as a "successful
interception." DIFC is an economic free zone for banks, capital traders and
wealth managers, home to exclusive restaurants and nightclubs for the
city-state's elite.
Iran said earlier this week that it would target banks and financial
institutions, after an airstrike hit a bank in Tehran.
Nearly 60 people were wounded in northern Israel after Lebanese militant
group Hezbollah said that it had fired several rocket salvoes toward the area
and at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. Almost all the injuries were
described as very minor.
One person was killed in southwestern Beirut in an Israeli strike, according
to the Lebanese Health Ministry, and another attack hit an apartment in the
capital, leaving it engulfed in flames. Following the attacks, the Israeli army
said that it had been targeting a member of Iran-linked Hezbollah.
In eastern Lebanon, a strike on an apartment wounded a local official with
the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and killed his two sons, the
state-run National News Agency reported. For the past two years, Israel has
targeted officials with the group, known as al-Jamaa al-Islamiya or the Islamic
Group.
More than 600 people have been killed in Lebanon since the fighting began,
the Health Ministry has reported. and nearly 800,000 have been internally
displaced, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
Israel also said it had begun a wave of strikes on Iran targeting
infrastructure. The military said that the Israeli air force had hit more than
200 targets in Iran over the past 24 hours, including missile launchers,
defense systems and weapons production sites.
Before the blast in Tehran's Ferdowsi Square, Israel's military issued a
warning on its Farsi-language X account that it would "conduct operations"
there later in the day.
"Your presence in these areas puts your life at risk," the Israeli military
said.
It wasn't clear how people in Tehran would have been able to see the
message, with the internet broadly shut down by Iran's theocracy, though many
have workarounds.
Security official Ali Larijani, who was taking part in the Quds Day
demonstrations, told Iranian media covering the event that the suspected
Israeli attack was a "sign of its desperation."
Iranian authorities say that more than 1,300 people have been killed there,
and Israel has reported 12 deaths. The U.S. has lost at least 11 soldiers,
while another eight have suffered severe injuries.
In his Friday morning post, Trump said that "we are totally destroying the
terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise."
"They've been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and
now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them,"
Trump said. "What a great honor it is to do so!"
Larijani said that Trump doesn't understand that "the more pressure he puts
on the people, the greater their willpower will be."
French soldier killed in Iraq
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that a French soldier was
killed in an attack targeting Irbil in Iraq's northern Kurdish region. France
earlier said that six soldiers had been hurt in a drone strike in Irbil, where
French troops are deployed as part of a multinational counterterrorism mission
supporting Iraqi forces in their fight against militants from the Islamic State
group.
In the same region, U.K. officials said that several U.S. personnel suffered
minor injuries Wednesday when drone strikes hit a base in Irbil that houses
both British and American troops.
Italy said that a base where it has troops in Irbil was also hit Wednesday,
but that there were no injuries. The Italian contingent in the region trains
local Kurdish troops at the request of the Iraqi government
Recovery efforts were ongoing in western Iraq to try and find the other two
crew of the American KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed after four bodies
were recovered, the U.S. military said.
U.S. Central Command said that the crash wasn't related to friendly or
hostile fire, and that two aircraft were involved, including one that landed
safely.
The KC-135 is the fourth publicly acknowledged aircraft to crash as part of
the U.S. military's operations against Iran. Last week, three American fighter
jets were mistakenly downed by friendly Kuwaiti fire.
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