Israel yesterday said that it killed two senior Iranian security officials in overnight strikes in a major blow to the nation’s leadership.
Tehran defiantly fired new salvos of missiles and drones at its Persian Gulf neighbors and Israel in a war that showed no signs of abating.
Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and General Gholam Reza Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force, were “eliminated last night,” Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz said.
Photo: AFP
Following the death of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an airstrike on the first day of the war, Larijani was considered one of the most powerful figures in Iran.
Both men were key to Iran’s violent crackdown on protests in January that challenged the theocracy’s 47-year rule.
Iranian state media did not immediately confirm either death. The killings would strip Iran of important leaders as the Islamic Republic faces its greatest test in decades in its war with the US and Israel.
With concerns growing about a global energy crisis, Iran fired new attacks at several of its Gulf Arab neighbors and oil infrastructure throughout the region.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), a major transit hub for international travel, briefly shut its airspace, the second disruption to flights in the city in as many days, as its military reported it was “responding to missile and drone threats from Iran.”
The UAE said its air defenses responded to 10 ballistic missiles and 45 drones Iran fired at the country yesterday.
An Iranian official defiantly said Tehran had no intention of relinquishing its tight grip on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for oil.
The Israeli military also said it had begun a “wide-scale wave of strikes” across Iran’s capital and was stepping up strikes on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
Iran also kept up the pressure on energy infrastructure around the region, hitting an oil facility in Fujairah, an emirate in the UAE that has been repeatedly targeted. State-run WAM news reported that no one had been injured in the blast from the drone strike.
A tanker anchored off the coast of Fujairah sustained minor damage when it was hit by debris from an interception, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, run by the British military, reported.
Nobody was injured.
A man was killed by the debris of a missile intercepted over Abu Dhabi, the eighth person to die in the UAE since the start of the war, authorities said.
Iran’s attacks on Gulf nations and its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil is transported, have given rise to increasing concerns of a global energy crisis and are unnerving the world economy.
A handful of ships have crossed through the strait and Iran has said the vital waterway technically remains open — just not for the US, Israel and their allies. About 20 vessels have been struck since the war began.
“They are flying, launching missiles, should we just sit back and do nothing in response?” Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf asked in an interview on state television.
With oil prices rising, US President Donald Trump said he had demanded that roughly a half-dozen nations send warships to ensure ships can pass through the strait, but his appeals brought no immediate commitments, with many saying they are hesitant to get involved in a war with no defined exit plan and skeptical that they could do more than the US Navy.
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