U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran proceed into 2nd day : NPR

AMMAN, Jordan – Iranians and others throughout the Center East awoke Sunday to a area in turmoil following the killing of Iran’s supreme chief in U.S. and Israeli air strikes.

The Iranian authorities, now with out the nation’s religious chief however with a navy command construction nonetheless seemingly intact, continued strikes on Israel and on U.S. targets in Gulf states, Iraq and Jordan.

Israel’s navy stated it started a brand new wave of assaults in Iran. Explosions had been heard within the Iranian capital Sunday morning. Israel’s navy stated it’s placing targets belonging to “the Iranian terror regime” positioned “within the coronary heart of Tehran.” The Israeli air power stated it performed large-scale strikes to determine air superiority and “pave the trail to Tehran.”

Iranian state media Saturday confirmed the dying of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, in air strikes concentrating on his workplace in Tehran. An Iran state broadcaster delivered the information in tears. Khamenei assumed the place of religious chief after the dying in 1989 of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – chief of Iran’s Islamic revolution.

Iran stated it had established a three-person short-term management council to control the nation below Islamic legislation earlier than a panel of Shia clerics chooses a brand new religious chief.

On Sunday mourners packed Tehran’s Enghelab Sq. and public areas in different cities to mark what they take into account Khamenei’s martyrdom.

Within the southwestern metropolis of Yasuj, movies posted to social media confirmed a big crowd chanting ‘the lion of God has been killed’. NPR couldn’t independently confirm the movies.

Iran stated the assault additionally killed Khamenei’s daughter, grandchild, daughter-in-law and son-in-law. It stated Armed Forces Chief of Workers Abdolrahim Mousavi and Main Common Shahid Rezaian, a senior intelligence chief, additionally died in airstrikes.

There was no obvious signal of renewed protests that rocked Iran beginning in December.

Iranian safety forces are believed to have killed 1000’s of demonstrators on the time, after anger over Iran’s monetary disaster become anti-regime protests. U.S. treasury secretary Scott Bessent stated the USA had engineered that monetary disaster.

One Tehran resident stated she and her pals, who’ve joined protests over years, shouted in pleasure from the rooftops after they heard Khamenei had been killed.

She stated considered one of her pals within the metropolis of Karaj close to Tehran was later shot as he and different younger individuals danced within the streets.

“The basiji got here,” she stated, referring to paramilitary inner safety forces. “He was shot in his again and his leg.” The girl, who requested to be recognized solely as Roxana in worry of regime retaliation, stated her buddy couldn’t go to hospital in worry of arrest.

In Lebanon, the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah introduced a commemoration in Beirut’s southern suburbs to mark the dying. Hezbollah had warned it will not let Khamenei’s dying go unpunished, however has to date stayed on the sidelines.

In Iraq, the place Iran-backed paramilitaries are a part of official authorities safety forces, the federal government blocked entrances to Baghdad’s inexperienced zone to guard the U.S. and different embassies based mostly there. They deployed riot police in opposition to a bunch of militia members making an attempt to breach the barricades.

In Jordan, which discretely hosts main U.S. navy bases, residents woke as much as air raid sirens and the thud of missiles being intercepted.

The oil-rich Gulf, lengthy seen as a secure haven for expatriates and the financial engine for nations that present most of its expert and un-skilled labor, confronted maybe the largest shocks.

Iran on Saturday and Sunday focused luxurious inns and high-rise residences believed to accommodate U.S. personnel. As a substitute of the standard flood of social influencer posts basking within the winter sunshine of Dubai and its neighboring emirates, movies of drones placing high-rise buildings dominated social media feeds. Some photographs confirmed smoke filling a part of the concourse of Dubai’s airport as employees fled the constructing.

The assaults shut down a number of main airport hubs within the Center East, together with Dubai’s worldwide airport, one of many world’s busiest. The airport and the emirate’s famed Burj Al Arab lodge had been broken in Iranian assaults. Different projectiles additionally hit airports in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait.

Iran Sunday threatened its greatest wave of assaults but on Israel and U.S. navy bases. It stated that because the begin of its retaliation for Saturday’s strikes, its projectiles had hit 27 U.S. bases within the area, together with an Israeli base and the Israeli military’s normal command headquarters. There was no affirmation of those strikes from the U.S. or Israel.

“There will likely be no mercy or forgiveness in taking revenge for the chief,” the Iranian ministry of protection stated in a press release.

Iran had additionally made clear Saturday that it will additionally assault delivery vessels and different business pursuits, and introduced it was closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a significant waterway for Gulf oil exports.

The OPEC group of oil producing nations was set to fulfill Sunday to resolve on growing manufacturing, hoping to keep away from a extreme rise in oil costs if provides from the Gulf are restricted by the battle.

President Trump in asserting the assaults Saturday had instructed Iranians they need to take again their authorities after the strikes had been completed. The killing of Khamenei and widening of Iranian targets pushed Iran’s nuclear services — the U.S. administration’s authentic said cause for attacking Iran — to the sidelines.

President Trump on Sunday in a put up on “Fact Social” warned Iran in opposition to additional retaliation, writing “THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT, HOWEVER, BECAUSE IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!”

Trump additionally instructed the information outlet Axios in a short telephone interview: “I can go lengthy and take over the entire thing, or finish it in two or three days and inform the Iranians: ‘See you once more in a couple of years in the event you begin rebuilding [nuclear and missile programs].”

Carrie Kahn contributed to this report from Istanbul.