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In this photo released by Iran’s Supreme Leader’s office, mourners carry the coffin of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei above the crowd for the final prayer before his burial at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)<\/p>\n
Iranian Supreme Leader Office vi<\/p>\n
In this photo released by Iran’s Supreme Leader’s office, mourners chant and raise their fists during the final funeral ceremony for the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the Imam Reza Shrine before his burial in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)<\/p>\n
Iranian Supreme Leader Office vi<\/p>\n
Mostafa Khamenei, center, brother of Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, leads a prayer over the coffin of his late father, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei before his burial at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)<\/p>\n
Iranian Supreme Leader Office vi<\/p>\n
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Iran on Saturday after the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saw open calls for his killing, further underlining the tensions gripping the Mideast as an interim deal to end the war buckles under repeated crossfire in the region.<\/p>\n
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Trump made the comments on his Truth Social after senior U.S. officials demanded that Iran make a public statement saying the Strait of Hormuz is open and that ships crossing the vital corridor won\u2019t be attacked any longer.<\/p>\n
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So far, Tehran has not done so, instead insisting the route remain under its control and that it be allowed to charge ships moving through it, upending decades of precedence considering the strait an international waterway.<\/p>\n
There had been multiple days of U.S. airstrikes targeting Iran, as well as Iranian retaliatory fire targeting nations across the Mideast. Those strikes had been sparked by Iran attacking three ships in the strait earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Trump makes online threat toward Iran<\/p>\n
\u201c1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat,\u201d Trump wrote on his website.<\/p>\n
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The U.S. president described his threat as coming over threats \u201cto assassinate, or attempt to assassinate\u201d him. During Khamenei’s funeral, mourners repeatedly held posters or banners calling for him to be killed along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
The Iran war’s opening moments on Feb. 28 saw an airstrike that killed Khamenei, 86. Iran only buried Khamenei this week in a dayslong funeral ceremony that saw his body taken to cities in both Iran and Iraq.<\/p>\n
Trump added in his post that the U.S. military would \u201ccompletely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran – PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!\u201d<\/p>\n
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Trump repeatedly during the war and its uneasy ceasefire has invoked the name of God in Arabic, as well as threatened to destroy Iran’s very civilization. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide advocacy group, in the past has criticized Trump\u2019s \u201cderanged mocking of Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n
US officials call on Iran to issue strait statement<\/p>\n
The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe to reporters the state of play with Iran, said the resumption of strikes this week came after what they described as a rogue faction of Iranian hard-liners trying to sabotage the ceasefire between Tehran and Washington.<\/p>\n
However, Iran has insisted its theocracy is unified after the war under the country’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.<\/p>\n
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The U.S. officials said Friday that Trump is giving U.S. negotiators limited time to reach a deal with Iran, but, in a sign of the challenges ahead, they underscored that the president had a wide range of options if talks fall apart.<\/p>\n
Moments before the U.S. officials spoke, however, Tehran\u2019s diplomat at the United Nations told reporters that any activity in the Strait of Hormuz, including its opening or demining operations, \u201crests exclusively with Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran has said the strait must now be under its sole control and that vessels should begin to pay fees to Tehran \u2014 even though the world for decades has considered it an international waterway. About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war began.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s grip on the strait during the conflict led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.<\/p>\n
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Price and Weissert reported from Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In this photo released by Iran’s Supreme Leader’s office, mourners carry the coffin of the late Iranian Supreme…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[73771,73772,145,31231,130760,92219,23681,59373,59371,59372,86205,61262,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-369111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-ali-khamenei","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-iran-united-states-trump-khamenei-funeral","tag-mojtaba-khamenei","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-32505-ap-online-middle-east-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}