US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he believes he should have a role in selecting Iran’s Supreme Leader, as the United States and Israel continued their attacks on Iran for the sixth straight day. Meanwhile, Iran continued launching retaliatory strikes against Israel, US military bases, and several countries across the region, AP reported.
Trump also rejected Mojtaba Khamenei, who was considered a leading candidate to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, who was reportedly killed during the initial attacks that started the war.
His remarks to the news outlet Axios are expected to raise further debate about whether the US and Israel aim to overthrow Iran’s Islamic Republic or simply push for changes in its policies, as the conflict continues with no clear end in sight.
The conflict has intensified daily, drawing in 14 more countries across the Middle East and other regions. On Thursday, Azerbaijan claimed that Iran carried out a drone attack against it, although Tehran rejected the accusation. Iran also warned that the United States would “bitterly regret” sinking an Iranian warship near Sri Lanka the previous day, AP reported.
Meanwhile, Israel ordered a large-scale evacuation of all southern suburbs of Beirut as clashes with Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters intensified. UN peacekeepers reported ground fighting in southern Lebanon as additional Israeli forces moved across the border, AP noted.
All the while, the US and Israel have battered Iran with nationwide strikes, targeting their military capabilities, leadership and nuclear program.
Iran’s attacks have targeted its Arab neighbors, disrupted oil supplies and snarled global air travel. The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 100 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six US troops have been killed.
Trump compares Iran to Venezuela
In the Axios interview, Trump derided the 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, who has never been elected or appointed to a government position, as “a light weight.”
“We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump said.
“I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy in Venezuela,” said Trump, referring to the acting president in the South American country. Delcy Rodríguez took power in January after Trump ordered a US military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro and whisk him to the US to face federal drug conspiracy charges, as reported by AP.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said this week that Iran’s next supreme leader — if he continues to threaten Israel, the US and others — “will be a target for elimination.”
Iran remains defiant
Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister of Iran, accused the United States Navy of carrying out what he called an “atrocity at sea” after it sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean earlier in the week, an incident that reportedly left at least 87 people dead, AP reported.
“Mark my words: The US will come to bitterly regret (the) precedent it has set,” he said on social media.
The Iranian ship sunk by the US Navy was returning from an exercise hosted by the Indian navy that the US also joined. Sri Lankan authorities said 32 crew members were rescued. Araghchi said it had been carrying “almost 130” crew.
An Iranian cleric later called on state television for the shedding of both Israeli and “Trump’s blood.”
The statement from Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli represented a rare call for violence by an ayatollah, one of the highest ranks within the clergy of Shiite Islam. There are dozens in Iran.
Sri Lanka said another Iranian warship was anchored near its coast on Thursday and that more than 200 sailors were being escorted to a naval base on the outskirts of the capital, Colombo. The ship will be taken to a port in the island nation’s eastern region, Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said.
The war keeps expanding
Israel reported several incoming missile attacks, with air-raid sirens sounding in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Israeli military said it responded by launching a series of strikes targeting Iran’s ballistic-missile launch sites, AP reported.
Countries in the Gulf also said they were targeted. In the United Arab Emirates, a drone was intercepted near Al Dhafra Air Base, which hosts United States Armed Forces personnel, and falling debris injured six people, according to authorities.
In Qatar, officials evacuated residents living near the United States Embassy in Doha as a precaution, and the country later reported a missile strike on Doha. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia said it shot down a drone in a province along its border with Jordan.
Kuwait said missiles were shot towards it Thursday evening, activating air defense systems.
Bahrain said an Iranian missile hit a state-run oil refinery on Thursday, sparking a fire that was extinguished. The refinery was still working, it said, and there were no reports of casualties. Earlier, Bahrain said its forces had intercepted 75 Iranian ballistic missiles and 124 drones since the start of the war.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev accused Iran of carrying out “a groundless act of terror and aggression” after a drone crashed Thursday near the airport in Nakhchivan, a region bordering Iran. Another drone fell near a school. Authorities said four civilians, all airport workers, were wounded.
Aliyev said the military had been instructed “to prepare and implement retaliatory measures.”
Iran rejected accusations that it had launched drones toward Azerbaijan and has repeatedly denied targeting oil facilities or other civilian infrastructure, even though some of its missiles and drones have struck such locations, AP reported.
Since the war began on Saturday, several ships have been attacked in the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping route through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes. The attacks and rising tensions in the area have driven global oil prices sharply higher.
