A senior Iranian official said the new supreme leader had rejected de-escalation offers conveyed by intermediary countries.
Meanwhile, Trump yesterday said he was postponing a highly anticipated trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping as the war with Iran upends US foreign policy and delays an effort to ease tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.
Meanwhile, Ali Larijani, senior adviser to Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed at the age of 67 by a US-Israeli air attack in Tehran, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said yesterday.
Larijani was widely viewed as one of Iran’s most powerful figures and a confidant of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his son and successor, Mojtaba. The security chief had held a series of senior jobs, although he had a reputation for pragmatic relations with other factions in the ruling system.
His death was confirmed by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which Larijani led as secretary. Larijani’s son and his deputy, Alireza Bayat, were also killed in Israel’s attack on Monday night, the council said.
In a sign of Iran’s continued defiance after more than two weeks of war, the senior Iranian official who asked not to be identified said the younger Khamenei had rejected proposals that were conveyed to Iran’s Foreign Ministry for “reducing tensions or ceasefire with the United States”. The official did not give further details.
The official said Mojtaba Khamenei had held his first foreign policy session since being named supreme leader, and had declared that it was not “the right time for peace until the United States and Israel are brought to their knees, accept defeat, and pay compensation”.
He did not clarify whether the younger Khamenei, who has not yet been pictured since being named last week to replace his slain father, had attended the meeting in person or remotely.
The US-Israeli war on Iran is now in its third week, with at least 2,000 people killed and no end in sight.
The Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed off and US allies have rebuffed US President Donald Trump’s calls for them to help to reopen the vital waterway, through which about 20 per cent of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows.
Trump has called on allies to provide military assistance to ease the global economic impact by reopening the strait. Most Nato allies have informed the US they don’t want to get involved in the conflict, Trump said yesterday, describing their position as “a very foolish mistake.”
“Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the Nato Countries’ assistance – WE NEVER DID!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, also singling out Japan, Australia and South Korea.
But Trump gave no indication that he plans to punish Nato allies for their stances, as he took questions from reporters in the Oval Office during the St Patrick’s Day visit of Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin.
“I think Nato is making a very foolish mistake,” Trump said. “Everyone agrees with us, but they don’t want to help. And we, you know, we as the United States have to remember that because we think it’s pretty shocking,” he added.
However, the UAE may join the US-led effort to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a senior Emirati official said yesterday. Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, said talks were ongoing and no formal plan had been agreed, but that ‘big countries’ in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe bore responsibility for ensuring the flow of trade and energy.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in an interview with Reuters yesterday that nobody was ready to risk the lives of their people in protecting the strait.
“We have to find diplomatic ways to keep this open so that we don’t have a food crisis, fertilisers crisis, energy crisis as well,” Kallas said.
In a video he posted of himself on X with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled a small “punch card” out of his suit jacket pocket and said: “Today I erased two names on the punch card, and you see how many more to go on this batch.”
Netanyahu said earlier that Israel was weakening Iran’s leadership to give its people the opportunity to rise up and topple the government.
There was no let-up in attacks by both sides yesterday.
In Israel, where Iranian missile attacks have killed 12 people, air raid sirens sounded throughout the day in the commercial hub Tel Aviv and surrounding cities as loud blasts of interceptions were heard as far away as Jerusalem.
The barrage underscores Tehran’s capacity to carry out long-range strikes despite more than two weeks of pounding by US and Israeli weapons.
The Israeli military said it was targeting “Iranian regime infrastructure” with a new wave of strikes across Tehran, as well as Hizbollah sites in Beirut.
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel “had, in effect already won the war”, but gave no timeline for when the war might end.
More than 900 people have died since Israel began attacks on Lebanon on March 2, the Lebanese Health Ministry said yesterday. More than 1,300 people have been killed and 7,000 injured in Iran, Iran’s ambassador to the UN said on Monday.
Iran has responded by wide-ranging attacks on its Gulf neighbours.
Gulf Arab states, including the UAE, have faced more than 2,000 missile and drone attacks on US diplomatic missions and military bases as well as oil infrastructure, ports, airports, ships and residential and commercial buildings.
Oil loading at the UAE port of Fujairah was at least partly halted yesterday after a third attack in four days caused a fire at the export terminal. Fujairah lies on the far side of the Strait of Hormuz from the Gulf, making it one of the few ports from which the region’s oil can be shipped without passing through the blockaded waterway.
UAE authorities said debris from an intercepted ballistic missile also fell in Abu Dhabi’s Bani Yas area, killing one Pakistani national, while a fire caused by a drone attack was being fought at Abu Dhabi’s Shah gas field.
l A top security official in Trump’s administration resigned over the war in Iran yesterday, saying the country had posed no imminent threat to the US. Joe Kent, who headed the National Counter-terrorism Centre, is the first senior official in Trump’s administration to resign over the conflict, now in its third week.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful lobby,” Kent wrote in a letter posted to social media.
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