The US and Israeli air war against Iran widened yesterday, with no end in sight as Israel attacked Lebanon in response to strikes by Hizbollah and Tehran kept up its missile and drone attacks on Gulf states.
President Donald Trump said the operation could continue for some weeks and that it was unclear who was in charge in Iran, following the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at the weekend.
The attack on Iran has pitched the Gulf into war, thrown global air transport into chaos and shut down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil trade skirts the Iranian coast, sending oil prices surging.
Underlining the risks, Kuwait mistakenly shot down three American F-15E fighter jets during an Iranian attack, US Central Command said. All six crew members ejected and were safely recovered. Video filmed at a location verified by Reuters showed one of the planes spiralling out of the sky, an engine on fire.
For Trump, the weekend strikes against a foe that had tormented the US and its allies for generations amounted to the biggest US foreign policy gamble in decades. Four US service personnel were reported to have died and Trump urged Americans to grieve their loss.
The campaign could pose a major political risk for his Republican Party in this year’s midterm elections, with only one in four Americans supporting the operation, according to a weekend Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Average US retail petrol prices rose above $3 per gallon in part due to the conflict, a worrying sign for a president who already faces growing discontent over bread-and-butter issues.
In his most extensive public comments so far, Trump said he had ordered the attack to thwart Tehran’s nuclear programme and a ballistic missile programme that he said was growing rapidly. But he gave no sign that the operation would end soon.
“Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that,” he said at the White House.
In the first formal Pentagon briefing since the campaign began, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, said more forces were still on their way to the region. “This is not a single overnight operation.
The military objectives ... will take some time to achieve, and in some cases will be difficult and gritty work,” Caine said.
The US military said it had struck more than 1,250 targets in Iran and destroyed 11 Iranian ships.
While Gulf Arab states have said they reserve the right to strike back against Iran, no US allies other than Israel have participated in the campaign, and Western diplomats say they have had no indication of the administration’s long-term plans. Turkey joined Russia and China in condemning the operation, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called a “clear violation” of international law.
Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon and says it was offering to curb its nuclear programme at talks when the United States launched an unprovoked assault. Trump repeated his call to Iranians to rise up and overthrow their leaders but said it was unclear who was in charge in Iran after the death of Khamenei.
Khamenei adviser Ali Larijani said on social media that Iran would not negotiate with Trump, who had “delusional ambitions.”
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi told state TV that his killing was a “religious crime” that will have serious consequences.
Within Iran, where residents have jammed highways to flee the bombing, there was uncertainty about the future and emotion ranging from euphoria to apprehension and rage.
Many have openly celebrated the death of Khamenei, 86, who had ruled since 1989 and directed security forces that killed thousands of anti-government protesters at the start of this year. But the conservative clerical leaders have shown no sign of yielding power, and military experts say air strikes without ground forces may not be enough to drive them out. At the Pentagon, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth did not rule out deploying ground forces to Iran.
The Israeli military said a wave of strikes in Tehran targeted Iranian security groups responsible for suppressing protests against the regime.
Meanwhile, scores of Iranians have been reported killed in strikes, including several that hit apparent civilian targets.
“They are killing children, they are attacking hospitals. Is this the kind of democracy Trump wants to bring us?” Morteza Sedighi, a 52-year-old teacher, said by phone from Tabriz in northwestern Iran. “Innocent people were first killed by the regime and now by Israel and the United States.”
In a sign that Iran’s rulers are still reaching out to the outside world, a senior Iranian security official contacted Reuters to say Iran was defending itself against aggressors and would continue to do so. A new front in the war opened yesterday when the Lebanese Hizbollah militia, one of Tehran’s principal allies in the Middle East, launched missiles and drones towards Israel.
Israel responded with sweeping air strikes, which it said targeted the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut and struck senior militants. The Lebanese state news agency NNA said at least 31 people had been killed and 149 injured.
Israel declared Hizbollah leader Naim Qassem a “target for elimination”. Officials said they were not for now considering a ground invasion of Lebanon, whose government yesterday banned military activities by Hizbollah.
As Washington’s allies in the Gulf came under renewed attack from Iranian missiles and drones, black smoke rose above the area around the US embassy in Kuwait. There were loud blasts in Dubai and Samha in the UAE, and in the Qatari capital Doha.
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