Fuel depots near Iran’s capital, Tehran, were engulfed in flames early on Sunday after US and Israeli forces expanded their attacks. Against that backdrop, Iran tried to project stability by announcing top clerics were finalising their selection of a new supreme leader. In the end, they selected Mojtaba Khamenei.
More than a week into the war, there was no sign of an offramp for the fighting. Both sides appeared to be intensifying attacks on critical infrastructure, potentially affecting millions of people across the Middle East.
The US Central Command on Sunday urged Iranian civilians to stay at home, suggesting the US could strike densely-populated areas as Iranian forces often use urban areas to launch drone strikes and ballistic missiles. Iran earlier rejected US president Donald Trump’s demand for unconditional surrender, with a top leader vowing to avenge Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death.
Iranian state television announced on Sunday that the country’s top clerics were close to naming a successor to Ayatollah Khamenei, the ruler killed in the opening blow of the US-Israeli war with Iran last weekend. Their choice, Mojtaba Khameini, is a son of the late supreme leader.
READ MORE
Trump had warned, in an interview with ABC News earlier on Sunday, that whoever is selected “is not going to last long” without the approval of the United States.
Oil fires blazing on the horizon turned the skies over Tehran orange overnight. Dense, oily clouds had settled over the capital on Sunday, according to residents and video. “With the fire it felt like night became day and then, with all the smoke, the day turned back into night again,” said a male Tehran resident who requested anonymity to avoid possible retribution by the Iranian authorities.
Israel’s military said it had targeted the fuel depots because they were being used by Iran’s military. In an address on Saturday night, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Israel had “many more targets” in Iran.
Iran retaliated by firing barrages of missiles and drones across the Persian Gulf, some of which hit civilian infrastructure. In Bahrain, the authorities announced that a desalination plant had been damaged in an Iranian attack. The Gulf countries depend almost entirely on desalination for drinking water.
The US embassy in Baghdad was also targeted in a rocket attack over the weekend as Iraq found itself being drawn deeper into the war. There were no casualties in the attack on Saturday night and it was not immediately clear who was behind it.
Norwegian police said they were investigating an explosion that damaged the US embassy in Oslo in the early hours of Sunday in what Norwegian officials called a “targeted attack”.
There were no injuries, but “there is significant damage to the entrance area of the embassy,” , the head of the Oslo Police Department’s investigation and intelligence unit, said at a news conference Sunday.
The Israeli military said on Sunday that two of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, marking the first fatalities among its troops since Israel-Hizbullah hostilities resumed last week.
Trump’s plans for the next phase of the war remained unclear as the US administration shifted its position. On Saturday, he told reporters on Air Force One that he had ruled out involving Kurdish forces as it would make the conflict “more complex”. Two days ago, he said he was “all in” on a Kurdish offensive in Iran.
When asked whether he would consider sending ground troops into Iran to secure its nuclear facilities, Trump said “at some point, maybe we will”. He added: “It would be a great thing, but right now we’re just decimating them.” – Copyright The New York Times
