reporters@odt.co.nz<\/a><\/p>\nIn a video statement posted to his Truth Social site, Trump vowed military strikes will continue until “all our objectives are achieved.”<\/p>\n
He said the assault had wiped out Iran’s military command and destroyed nine Iranian navy ships and a naval building.<\/p>\n
Trump said the Iranian military and police should lay down their arms, promising immunity for those who surrender and threatening “certain death” for those who resist. He reiterated calls for the Iranian people to revolt against the government.<\/p>\n
“I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic and take back your country,” Trump said in the pre-recorded video. “America is with you.”<\/p>\n
Earlier in an interview with the Atlantic magazine, Trump said Iran’s leadership wanted to\u00a0talk to him\u00a0and he had agreed.<\/p>\n
In a separate interview with the Daily Mail, he said the military campaign against Iran could continue for the next four weeks.<\/p>\n
But he has yet to lay out his longer-term aims in\u00a0Iran, which faces a power\u00a0vacuum\u00a0that could leave it in chaos, with unforeseeable consequences for the region.<\/p>\n
As the\u00a0first US casualties\u00a0were reported, and with the vital\u00a0Strait of Hormuz\u00a0closed and the glittering\u00a0Gulf cities\u00a0of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha under bombardment, the scale of the risk taken by Trump in launching the attack was becoming clearer.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0first US casualties\u00a0of the campaign, including the deaths of three\u00a0service personnel, were confirmed this morning.<\/p>\n
Trump paid tribute to the three killed as “true American patriots” but warned that there will likely be more casualties.<\/p>\n
“That’s the way it is,” he said.<\/p>\n
With the vital\u00a0Strait of Hormuz\u00a0closed and the\u00a0Gulf cities\u00a0of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha under bombardment, the scale of the risk taken by Trump in attacking Iran months before US midterm elections that will decide control of Congress is becoming clearer.<\/p>\n
Only around\u00a0one in four Americans approve\u00a0of the operation, according to a Reuters\/Ipsos poll last night, and if Hormuz, which is the passage for about 20% of world oil supplies, remains closed for more than a few days, squeezed US consumers will start to feel the pressure on prices at the pumps.<\/p>\n
EXISTENTIAL CHALLENGE FOR IRAN<\/p>\n
The Israeli military said late on Sunday that its air force had established aerial superiority over Tehran, and that a wave of strikes across the capital had targeted intelligence, security, and military command centers.<\/p>\n
But the\u00a0prospect of Hezbollah involvement threatened to widen the conflict further. Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Reuters was unable to verify the origins of the projectiles the Israeli military said it intercepted. Israel and Lebanon agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire in 2024.<\/p>\n
Israel’s present focus is to undermine the Iranian government so that it collapses, an Israeli official said on condition of anonymity, adding that Israel “is acting in its own ways” to get Iranians to take to the streets.<\/p>\n
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had hit three US and UK oil tankers in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, and attacked military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain with drones and missiles. Shipping data showed\u00a0hundreds of vessels\u00a0including oil and gas tankers dropping anchor in nearby waters with traders expecting sharp jumps in\u00a0crude oil prices\u00a0on Monday.<\/p>\n
Global air travel was also\u00a0heavily disrupted\u00a0as continued air strikes kept major Middle Eastern airports, including Dubai – the world’s busiest international hub – closed in one of the biggest aviation interruptions in recent years.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0Iran, facing its biggest existential challenge since the 1980-88 war with Iraq, President\u00a0Masoud Pezeshkian\u00a0said a leadership council composed of himself, the judiciary head and a member of the powerful Guardians Council had temporarily assumed the duties of Supreme Leader.<\/p>\n
Oman’s foreign ministry said\u00a0Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had indicated that Tehran was open to any serious efforts at de-escalation.<\/p>\n
But in a post on X, Araqchi suggested Iran was ready to keep fighting.<\/p>\n
“We’ve had two decades to study defeats of the US military to our immediate east and west,” he wrote. “Bombings in our capital have no impact on our ability to conduct war.”<\/p>\n
It remained unclear what the longer-term prospects were for Iran to\u00a0rebuild its leadership\u00a0and replace the\u00a086-year-old Khamenei, who had held power since the death of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989.<\/p>\n
Russian President\u00a0Vladimir Putindenounced Khamenei’s death\u00a0as a cynical murder and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi described it as “blatant killing”.<\/p>\n
IRAN\u00a0HITS BACK<\/p>\n
As Iran fired renewed missile barrages across the region, air raid sirens sounded across Israel late on Sunday, warning of the latest incoming attack, including in Tel Aviv, where projectiles were seen streaking across the night sky.<\/p>\n
The projectiles launched from Lebanon led to sirens sounding in several areas in northern Israel early on Monday.<\/p>\n
Lebanon’s presidency said on Saturday it had been told by the US ambassador that Israel would not escalate against Lebanon as long as there are no hostile acts from the Lebanese side.<\/p>\n
Israel’s ambulance service said nine people were killed in the town of Beit Shemesh, the United Arab Emirates said Iranian attacks killed three people, and Kuwait reported one dead.<\/p>\n
Inside Iran, some grieved for Khamenei while others celebrated his death, exposing a deep fault line in the stunned country.<\/p>\n
Thousands of Iranians were\u00a0killed in a crackdown\u00a0authorized by Khamenei against anti-government protests in January, the deadliest wave of unrest since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.<\/p>\n
Khamenei, who built Iran into a powerful anti-US force and spread its sway across the Middle East during his 36-year iron-fisted rule, was working in his office at the time of Saturday’s attack, state media said. The raid also killed his daughter, grandchild, daughter-in-law and son-in-law.<\/p>\n
Experts said that while his death and those of other Iranian leaders would deal Iran a major blow, it would not necessarily spell the end of Iran’s entrenched clerical rule or the sway of the elite Revolutionary Guards over the population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel launched a new wave of\u00a0strikes on Tehran overnight and\u00a0Iran\u00a0responded with more missile barrages, a day after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-309744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}