Israel targets Iran’s security forces, leadership as Iran presses attacks across region
Dubai, Mar 04: The United States and Israel hit Iran’s capital and other cities in multiple airstrikes on Wednesday, the fifth day of the war with Iran. Israel targeted the Iranian leadership and security forces as the Islamic Republic responded with missile barrages and drone attacks on Israel and across the region.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard issued its most intense threat yet as the war escalated, saying it was prepared for the “complete destruction of the region’s military and economic infrastructure.”
Tehran residents woke to dawn blasts, and Iranian state television showed the ruins of a building in the centre of the capital. The Shiite seminary city of Qom and multiple other cities were also targeted.
With fighter jets roaring overhead, those still in Tehran looked anxiously to the skies. One man, who ran a clothing shop, said he didn’t know what to do.
“If I leave the city, how am I supposed to earn money and survive?” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
The Israeli military said one of its F-35 stealth fighter jets shot down a piloted Iranian Air Force YAK-130 fighter over Tehran on Wednesday. It also said Israeli air defences were activated to intercept Iranian missiles fired at targets around the country, and explosions were heard around Jerusalem.
The tempo of the strikes on Iran was so intense that authorities postponed the mourning ceremony for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the conflict, according to Iranian state television.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s Defence Ministry said NATO defences intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Iran before it entered Turkey’s airspace. An Iranian naval frigate sank off the coast of Sri Lanka. Authorities there rescued 32 people, though others died, Sri Lankan officials said.
It was not immediately clear what happened to the ship, which Sri Lankan authorities identified as the IRIS Dena, and is armed with heavy guns, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles, torpedoes and can carry a helicopter. The US military said earlier it had already destroyed 17 Iranian vessels and that its goal was to sink “the entire navy.”
US Embassies and oil in the crosshairs
With Iran’s stranglehold on tanker movement through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which about a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped, Brent crude prices hit USD 84 a barrel, up more than 15 per cent since the start of the conflict and at its highest price since July 2024.
Global stock markets have been hammered over worries that the spike in oil prices may grind down the world economy and sap corporate profits.
Iran has also attacked regional infrastructure. Saudi Arabia said Wednesday its Ras Tanura oil refinery, one of the world’s largest, was again targeted after an unsuccessful drone attack on it earlier in the week. The kingdom’s oil ministry said the latest attack did not cause any damage and supplies were not affected.
The American Embassy in Saudi Arabia and the US Consulate in the United Arab Emirates came under drone attacks on Tuesday, and the US State Department said on Wednesday it had authorised non-emergency government personnel to evacuate the kingdom.
US Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, said Iran has launched more than 500 ballistic missiles and 2,000 drones so far.
“We’ve already struck nearly 2,000 targets, with more than 2,000 munitions. We have severely degraded Iran’s air defences and destroyed hundreds of Iran’s ballistic missiles, launchers and drones,” Cooper said in a prerecorded message shared online Wednesday.
Five days into a war that US President Donald Trump suggested could last a month or longer, more than 1,000 people have been killed in Iran, including some Trump said he had considered as possible future leaders of the country.
Both sides are unrelenting in attacks
Air sirens sounded in the morning across the island kingdom of Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, and Qatar’s Ministry of Defence said Iran launched two ballistic missiles against it. One hit Al-Udeid Qatari Base, but didn’t cause casualties.
Lebanon was hit in multiple strikes, and Israel said it was retaliating against Hezbollah militants after the Iran-backed group fired on Israel. More than 50 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 300 wounded, according to the Health Ministry.
Iranian-linked militant groups in Iraq have also been launching attacks.
Israeli military spokesman Brig. Gen Effie Defrin reported a decline in launches from Iran as the country’s military capabilities are degraded. In airstrikes overnight, the Israeli military said it hit a missile storage and production plant in Isfahan.
The spiralling nature of the war raised questions about when and how it would end. Trump’s administration has offered various objectives, including destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, wiping out its navy, preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensuring it cannot continue to support allied armed groups.
Israel presses attacks on Iranian forces and leadership
While the initial US-Israeli strikes killed Khamenei and Trump urged Iranians to overthrow their government, senior administration officials have since said regime change was not the goal.
Trump on Tuesday seemed to downplay the chances of the war ending Iran’s theocratic rule, saying that “someone from within” the Iranian regime might be the best choice to take power once the US-Israel campaign is finished.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Wednesday on X that whoever Iran picks as the country’s next supreme leader, he will be “a target for elimination.”
The Israeli military also said it hit buildings in Tehran associated with the Basij, the all-volunteer force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that conducted the bloody crackdown on protesters in January that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands detained in the country.
Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholam Hosseini Mohseni Ejehei, threatened on Wednesday anyone who supports the US-Israeli campaign, saying on Iranian state television that they are “on the enemy’s side and must be dealt with on revolutionary, Islamic principles and in accordance with the time of war.”
Iran’s leaders are scrambling to replace Khamenei, who ruled the country for 37 years. It’s only the second time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that a new supreme leader is being chosen. Among those considered as possible candidates is Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the late ayatollah.
Defrin, the Israeli military spokesman, said the military struck a building in the Iranian city of Qom on Tuesday where clerics were expected to meet to discuss selecting a new supreme leader. He said the army was still assessing whether anyone was hit.
The semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to the Guard, said Wednesday there was no meeting there at the time of the attack.
Hundreds have died, including children
The US-Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,045 people, Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs said Wednesday, saying it represented the number of bodies so far identified and prepared for burial.
Eleven people in Israel have been killed since the conflict began.
Kuwait, which had previously reported a single death, said Wednesday that an 11-year-old girl was killed by falling shrapnel as Kuwaiti forces were intercepting “hostile aerial targets.” In addition, three people were killed in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain.
Six US Army Reserve soldiers were killed Sunday in Kuwait.
