Iran yesterday threatened to target recreational and tourist sites worldwide and insisted it was still building missiles. The show of defiance came nearly three weeks into US-Israeli strikes that have killed a slew of Tehran’s top leaders and hammered its weapons and energy industries.
Iran fired on Israel and energy sites in neighboring Gulf Arab states, as many in the region marked one of the holiest days on the Muslim calendar. Iranians were also marking the Persian New Year, known as Nowruz, a normally festive holiday that is more subdued this year.
With little information coming out of Iran, it was not clear how much damage its arms, nuclear or energy facilities have sustained since the war began on Feb. 28 or even who was truly in charge of the country. However, Iran has showed it is still capable of attacks that are choking off oil supplies and denting the global economy, raising food and fuel prices far beyond the Middle East.
Photo: Reuters
The US and Israel have offered shifting rationales for the war, from hoping to foment an uprising that topples Iran’s leadership to eliminating its nuclear and missile programs. There have been no public signs of any such uprising, and it is not clear what capabilities Iran retains or how the war might end.
Iran’s top military spokesman yesterday warned that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide would not be safe for Tehran’s enemies.
Iranian General Abolfazl Shekarchi made the threat, as Tehran continued to be hit by US and airstrikes. It renewed concerns that Iran might revert to using militant attacks beyond the Middle East as a pressure tactic in the war.
Photo: AP
US and Israeli leaders have said that weeks of strikes have decimated Iran’s military. Airstrikes have also killed its supreme leader, the head of its Supreme National Security Council and a raft of other top-ranking military and political leaders.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Iran’s navy was sunk and its air force in tatters, while adding that its ability to produce ballistic missiles had been taken out. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard yesterday disputed the missile claim.
“We are producing missiles even during war conditions, which is amazing, and there is no particular problem in stockpiling,” spokesman General Ali Mohammad Naeini was quoted as saying in Iran’s state-run IRAN newspaper.
Photo: AFP
Naeini added that Iran had no intention of seeking a quick end to the war.
“These people expect the war to continue until the enemy is completely exhausted,” he said.
A short time after the statement was released, Iranian state television said Naeini was killed in an airstrike.
The country’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei also released a rare statement, saying Iran’s enemies need to have their “security” taken away.
Khamenei has not been seen since he succeeded his father, the 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the first day of the war.
Iran has stepped up its attacks on energy sites in Gulf Arab states after Israel bombed Iran’s massive South Pars offshore natural gas field earlier in the week.
Two waves of Iranian drones attacked a Kuwaiti oil refinery early Friday, sparking a fire. The Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, which can process some 730,000 barrels of oil per day, is one of the largest in the Middle East. It was damaged Thursday in another Iranian attack.
Bahrain said a fire broke out after shrapnel from an intercepted projectile landed on a warehouse, and Saudi Arabia reported shooting down multiple drones targeting its oil-rich Eastern Province.
Heavy explosions shook Dubai as air defenses intercepted incoming fire over the city, where people were observing Eid al-Fitr, the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
In Iran, many were marking Nowruz even as Israel said it had launched new strikes, and explosions were heard over Tehran. The Persian New Year, which coincides with the spring equinox, is a tradition observed across southwestern Asia that dates back thousands of years.
Loud explosions could also be heard in Jerusalem after the Israeli army warned of incoming Iranian missiles. First responders said they treated two people around 70 years old who were lightly wounded.
In addition to steadily striking Iran, Israel has regularly hit Lebanon, targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants who have been firing rockets and drones into Israel.
Israel yesterday broadened its attacks to Syria, saying it hit infrastructure there in response to what it described as attacks on the minority Druze population.
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency did not immediately acknowledge the attack.
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