U.S. President Donald Trump insisted on Thursday that he would have a say in picking Iran’s next supreme leader, as U.S.-Israeli actions triggered by the war that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reverberated across the Middle East and beyond.
Earlier, Israel issued an unprecedented evacuation warning for the entire southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Iran-backed Hezbollah, causing residents to flee the area in panic and hundreds of thousands of people.
The warning comes after a new wave of Israeli attacks on Iran, which has once again launched a fierce attack on Gulf states.
The war has attracted global powers, disrupted the shipping industry and disrupted energy markets. The impact was felt as far away as the coast of Sri Lanka, where a U.S. submarine torpedoed an Iranian warship, and in Azerbaijan, which threatened retaliation after a drone hit an airport.
Trump on Thursday rejected the possibility of Khamenei’s son Moitaba Khamenei succeeding his slain father as supreme leader, calling the young man a “lightweight.”
“I have to be a part of this appointment, just like I was with Delcy,” Trump told Axios in an interview with Interim President Delcy Rodríguez, who he said was working with Venezuela under threat of violence after the United States ousted its boss Nicolás Maduro.
The report quoted Trump as saying: “A Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone who can bring harmony and peace to Iran.” He threatened that if a better alternative is not found, more wars will break out in the future.
The comments suggest that, despite Trump’s repeated exhortations to Iranians to rise up and take back their country, he is willing to work with those within the Islamic Republic rather than overthrow the government entirely.
– Beirut warning –
Lebanon was drawn into the widening conflict on Monday after the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah attacked Israel in revenge for the killing of Khamenei.
Israel responded with airstrikes and sent ground troops to some Lebanese border villages. It asked residents of a large swath of southern Lebanon to leave because of the possibility of military action there.
“Save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately,” an Israeli military spokesman said in a message to residents of Dahiyeh, a suburb south of Beirut, on Thursday.
Such warnings often herald large-scale attacks, with massive traffic jams on suburban outskirts and shots fired into the air urging locals to leave as quickly as possible.
On Beirut’s beaches, hundreds of families scurried away with nowhere to go, many of them milling around in fear and anger.
“We fled the suburbs, we were humiliated,” one man, who declined to give his name, told AFP.
“We will sleep on the road tonight and only God knows what will happen to us.”
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun asked French President Emmanuel Macron to intercede with Israel to prevent the bombing of southern Beirut.
Macron said after the conversation: “At this moment of great danger, I call on the Israeli Prime Minister not to expand the war to Lebanon.”
Earlier in the day, Israel said its forces attacked “several command centers of the Hezbollah terrorist group” south of Beirut.
Lebanese authorities said at least 102 people have been killed, 638 injured and at least 90,000 displaced since Monday.
– From Sri Lanka to Azerbaijan –
On Iran’s border, neighboring Azerbaijan warned that drone attacks on airports “will not go unanswered,” raising concerns about another country joining the war.
Iran denied being behind the attack and blamed Israel, but that did not stop Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev from accusing Tehran of “terrorism”.
Australia deployed two military aircraft to the war zone, while Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he could not rule out the involvement of its armed forces.
The war also embroiled NATO member Turkey after a NATO air defense system destroyed a missile launched from Iran into Turkish airspace.
A Turkish official said the missile appeared to be targeting a British base in Cyprus, but Türkiye summoned the Iranian ambassador over the incident.
AFP images showed blackened vehicles and destroyed buildings, some with thick smoke billowing from them, after a new wave of attacks hit the Iranian capital.
“We are going through a very important page in history and I am not afraid,” a 30-year-old Tehran resident told AFP.
“Hope is the only thing we have right now.”
An Iranian state-run foundation said the death toll from U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran had risen to 1,230, but AFP could not independently verify the figure.
The country is effectively isolated from the rest of the world, with an internet operating capacity of around 1%, according to Netblocks monitoring data.
Meanwhile, AFP reporters in Jerusalem heard explosions after receiving warnings of an Iranian missile attack.
-“We will not surrender”-
The conflict has not spared wealthy Gulf monarchies, which are often seen as safe havens in the restive region, as Iran has launched a barrage of attacks on cities and energy infrastructure.
Thirteen people have been killed in countries surrounding the Gulf since the war began, seven of them civilians, including an 11-year-old girl in Kuwait.
Qatar said on Thursday it was intercepting an incoming missile attack, which an AFP reporter said was the strongest explosion yet, echoing over Doha and sending thick black smoke billowing on the horizon.
Debris from an intercepted drone also injured six people in the United Arab Emirates’ capital Abu Dhabi, officials said.
In Bahrain, an Iranian missile attack sparked a fire at the main state-owned oil refinery, but the fire was later brought under control, the Gulf States Communications Center said.
Meanwhile, some Western diplomats in the Saudi capital Riyadh said they were told to shelter in place on Thursday, while a witness said the city’s diplomatic district had been closed.
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This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.
