Iran hit with more strikes after Khamenei’s assassination, Trump warns against retaliation
An enormous explosion rocked Iran’s capital on Sunday as the Zionist forces launched another wave of attacks, while U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran of consequences for retaliation in the wake of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s assassination.
The joint U.S.-“Israel” operation, which officials say was planned for months, started Saturday during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan and at the start of the Iranian workweek, following stilted negotiations and warnings from Trump.
Iran’s Cabinet vowed that this “great crime will never go unanswered” and the Revolutionary Guard threatened to launch its “most intense offensive operation” ever, targeting “Israeli” and American bases.
“You have crossed our red line and must pay the price,” Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said in a televised address Sunday. “We will deliver such devastating blows that you yourselves will be driven to beg.”
The United States will hit Iran “with a force that has never been seen before,” Trump warned on Sunday, if the Middle East nation hit back after the strikes.
“Iran just stated that they are going to hit very hard today, harder than they have ever been hit before,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
He added, “THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT, HOWEVER, BECAUSE IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!”
In a sign of how the attack could spread instability throughout the region, hundreds of Shiite Muslims stormed the U.S. Consulate in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi on Sunday, smashing windows. Police and paramilitary forces used batons and fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, said Mohammad Jawad, a police official. At least six people were killed in clashes, authorities said.
Oman said an oil tanker in the strategic Strait of Hormuz came under attack, wounding four mariners on board. The attack targeted a Palau-flagged vessel called Skylight, the state-run Oman News Agency said. It described the crew as Indian and Iranian.
It wasn’t clear who attacked the vessel, but it came as authorities have said Iran has been threatening ships traveling the strait via radio since the United States and “Israel” launched its attack on Iran.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, a militant group claimed responsibility for a drone attack “targeting American bases in Irbil,” according to the Rudaw media outlet. Smoke could be seen from an area where the U.S. has an air base there, but it was not immediately clear whether it had been hit.
Several loud blasts were heard for a second day on Sunday in Dubai and over Qatar’s capital of Doha, witnesses said, after Iran launched retaliatory strikes on the neighbouring Gulf states.
Puffs of white smoke from missile interceptions were glimpsed in the skies over Dubai, while billows of dark smoke rose over its port of Jebel Ali, one of the busiest in the Middle East.
Global air travel remained heavily disrupted as continued air strikes kept major Middle Eastern airports closed in one of the biggest aviation interruptions in recent years.
