Iran launched a number of assaults early Friday on Gulf Arab states, together with dozens of drones at Saudi Arabia, following warnings from its new supreme chief about internet hosting American bases, and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened main new retaliation.
“Watch what occurs to those deranged scumbags immediately,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “Iran’s Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth.”
The comments came the day after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei vowed to “not refrain from avenging the blood” of Iranians killed, and warned Gulf Arab nations to shut U.S. bases, saying the notion of American protection was “nothing more than a lie.”
Intense airstrikes hit early Friday around Iran’s capital, Tehran, as well as outlying areas. It was not immediately clear what had been targeted.
The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, remained stubbornly over $100 per barrel as Iran kept its stranglehold on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil transits on its way from the Persian Gulf to the open seas.
Brent prices have spiked as high as about $120 per barrel and are currently some 40% higher than when Israel and the United States attacked Iran on Feb. 28 to start the war.
Iran has been attacking ships that try to transit the strait, and Khamenei’s comments — his first to the public since being named to replace his father, who was killed during the first day of the conflict — said Iran would continue to block the waterway.
In Iraq, recovery efforts were underway after an American KC-135 refueling plane went down, according to U.S. Central Command. And a French soldier who was stationed in the north of the country was killed in an attack, the French president said Friday.
Iran launches new attacks on Gulf Arab countries
Iran has been attacking oil and other infrastructure around the Gulf region, and on Friday Saudi Arabia that it had downed nearly 50 drones sent in multiple waves throughout the early morning hours.
Sirens also sounded in Bahrain warning of incoming fire from Dubai, and black smoke billowed from an industrial area after authorities said debris from an interception had sparked a blaze.
Nearly 60 people were wounded in northern Israel after Hezbollah said it had fired several rocket salvoes toward the area and at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. Almost all the injuries were described as very minor.
One person was killed in southwestern Beirut in an Israeli strike, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, and another attack hit an apartment in the capital, leaving it engulfed in flames. Following the attacks, the Israeli army said it had been targeting a member of Iran-linked Hezbollah.
More than 600 people have been killed in Lebanon since the fighting began, the Health Ministry has reported. and nearly 800,000 have been internally displaced, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
Iranian authorities say more than 1,300 people have been killed there, and Israel has reported 12 deaths. The U.S. has lost at least seven soldiers while another eight have suffered severe injuries.
In his Friday morning post, Trump said that “we’re completely destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and in any other case.”
“They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them,” Trump stated. “What a great honor it is to do so!”
The U.S. army stated American forces have now struck greater than 6,000 targets for the reason that operation in opposition to Iran started, together with greater than 30 minelaying vessels.
France says a soldier was killed in Iraq
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron stated a French soldier was killed in an assault concentrating on Irbil in Iraq’s northern Kurdish area. France earlier stated six troopers had been harm in a drone strike in Irbil, the place French troops are deployed as a part of a multinational counterterrorism mission supporting Iraqi forces of their battle in opposition to Islamic State militants.
In the identical area, British officers stated a number of U.S. personnel suffered minor accidents Wednesday when drone strikes hit a base in Irbil that homes each British and American troops.
Italy stated {that a} base the place it has troops in Irbil was additionally hit Wednesday however that there have been no accidents. The Italian contingent within the area trains native Kurdish troops on the request of the Iraqi authorities
Recovery efforts have been underway in western Iraq on Friday after the American KC-135 refueling plane crashed. It was not instantly clear whether or not there have been any casualties, however the plane had 5 crew on board.
U.S. Central Command stated the crash was not associated to pleasant or hostile hearth, and that two plane have been concerned, together with one which landed safely.
The KC-135 is the fourth publicly acknowledged plane to crash as a part of the U.S. army’s operations in opposition to Iran. Last week, three American fighter jets have been mistakenly downed by pleasant Kuwaiti hearth.
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Rising reported from Bangkok and Abou AlJoud from Beirut, Lebanon
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/iran-american-donald-trump-navy-united-arab-emirates-b2937716.html