(AFP) – Iran vowed on Wednesday a “decisive” retaliation for the death of its security chief Ali Larijani, firing off a wave of missiles at Israel which said it killed him in an air strike. A barrage of Iranian missiles killed two people near Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv, while Gulf nations intercepted rockets and drones headed for targets including US bases in the region.
Iran will hold funerals Wednesday for Larijani and another powerful figure killed Tuesday by Israel, Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij paramilitary force, according to the Fars and Tasnim news agencies. Larijani is the most prominent figure of the Islamic republic killed since Israel and the United States launched their attacks on Iran on February 28, killing supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and igniting a war in the Middle East.
“Iran’s response to the assassination of the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council will be decisive and regrettable,” Iranian army chief Amir Hatami said in a statement. Besides sending missiles and drones into Israel and Gulf nations, Iran has sought to extract a heavy toll on the global economy, including by driving up the cost of oil by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for crude.
With oil still hovering around $100 a barrel, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned Wednesday that the global repercussions of the war “has only just begun and will hit all”. As part of an effort to reopen Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s crude transits, the US military said it brought out some of the heaviest bombs in its arsenal to penetrate adjacent missile sites.
The United States dropped several 5,000-pound (2,250 kg) bombs — estimated to cost $288,000 each — on “hardened Iranian missile sites” near the coast that posed a threat to international shipping, Central Command said. US President Donald Trump earlier Tuesday fumed that American allies, which have largely distanced themselves from his war, were not lining up behind the United States to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. But Trump also boasted that the US military did not need its allies, writing on his Truth Social platform: “WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which said Wednesday they launched missiles at central Israel as retaliation, warned in a statement that Larijani’s death would spur further attacks. The “pure blood of this great martyr… will be a source of honour, power, and national awakening against the front of global arrogance,” the powerful military force said in a statement.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan lashed out at Israel, condemning its “political assassinations” of Tehran’s leaders as “illegal activities outside the normal laws of war”. But Israel vowed also to target Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not appeared in public since the ruling clerics chose him to succeed his father. “We don’t know about Mojtaba Khamenei, we don’t hear him, we don’t see him, but I can tell you one thing: we will track him down, find him, and neutralise him,” military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin told reporters.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again called for the end of the Islamic republic, although he and Trump have stopped short of saying that is their goal. The overthrow of Iran’s authorities by the people “will not happen all at once, it will not happen easily. But if we persist in this — we will give them a chance to take their fate into their own hands,” Netanyahu said in a televised statement. In contrast to Mojtaba Khamenei, Larijani, 68, had walked openly with crowds at a pro-government rally last week in Tehran.
“He has effectively been the figure in charge of the regime’s survival, its regional policy, and its defence strategy,” David Khalfa, co-founder of the Atlantic Middle East Forum, told AFP. “It’s the supreme leader who gives the order, but he is the one who carries it out. He is the right-hand man.”
In Israel, medics said two people died after an Iranian missile barrage caused extensive damage to a building near the commercial hub Tel Aviv. AFP journalists also heard loud explosions in Dubai, the glitzy economic hub whose sense of security has been shaken by persistent Iranian drones and missiles. In rare dissent within Trump’s ranks, Joseph Kent, the director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation with an open letter.
Kent wrote that Iran posed no “imminent threat” to the United States, which he said started the war “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby”. Trump denounced the criticism in personal terms, calling Kent “very weak on security”. Israel earlier said it had also targeted Akram al-Ajouri, head of the military wing of the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in a strike in Iran. Israel has gone after leaders of its enemies since Hamas, which is backed by Tehran, attacked on October 7, 2023.
The war has taken a particularly heavy toll on Lebanon, where Israeli strikes early Wednesday again hit the heart of Beirut. At least six people died, Lebanese authorities said, with media reporting that a strike hit an apartment. According to Lebanese authorities, Israeli strikes have killed 912 people since March 2, while more than one million people have registered as displaced, with more than 130,000 staying in official shelters.
Hezbollah, the Shiite movement backed by Iran, had struck Israel after Khamenei’s killing, prompting a massive Israeli air and ground campaign reminiscent of past wars. In the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, displaced people were sleeping in their cars, according to an AFP team on the ground. “Lots of people are coming every day to ask for shelter but we don’t have space anymore, we can’t accept them,” said Jihan Kaisi, the director of an NGO that runs a school-turned-shelter, where more than 1,100 people are crammed together.
burs-sct/hmn/ami – AFP teams in Jerusalem, Tehran, Beirut, and Washington.
© 2024 AFP
