More explosions have been heard throughout the Gulf states, and a minimum of three individuals have been killed within the United Arab Emirates as Iran carries out assaults in retaliation for strikes by the United States and Israel that killed its supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and different high officers.
The explosions had been heard for a second day on Sunday in Dubai, the UAE; Bahrain’s capital, Manama; and Qatar’s capital, Doha, elevating fears of a wider conflict in a area lengthy seen as a haven of peace and safety in an in any other case turbulent Middle East.
Recommended Stories
listing of 4 objectsfinish of listing
Witnesses in Doha reported listening to a number of loud bangs and seeing thick, black smoke rising on the clear morning horizon within the south of the town.
Shortly afterwards, one other wave of explosions reverberated by means of Dubai, a regional enterprise hub. Puffs of white smoke from missile interceptions had been seen within the metropolis’s skies whereas billows of darkish smoke rose over Jebel Ali, one of many busiest ports within the Middle East.
The three individuals killed within the UAE assaults had been Pakistani, Nepalese and Bangladeshi nationals, the Ministry of Defence in Abu Dhabi stated.
Explosions had been additionally reported in Manama with witnesses reporting a minimum of 4 loud explosions. There was no fast report of any harm or accidents from Sunday’s blasts.
Later within the day, the Oman News Agency reported that the Duqm business port, situated within the Al Wusta Governorate in central Oman, was struck by two drones. It reported that an expatriate employee was injured within the assault.
The assault on Oman, which had been mediating negotiations between Iran and the US earlier than the US and Israel launched their assaults on Saturday, was condemned by the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Majed al-Ansari, a spokesperson for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated the strike on Oman “is an attack on the very principle of mediation”.
The explosions got here after a day of comparable Iranian strikes on bases utilized by the US army and different US belongings throughout the Gulf.
Thousands of US troopers are deployed within the oil- and gas-rich Arab states mendacity simply throughout the Gulf from Iran.
On Saturday, Iran fired 137 missiles and 209 drones throughout the UAE, its Ministry of Defence stated, with fires and smoke reaching the Dubai landmarks of Palm Jumeirah and Burj al-Arab.
At Abu Dhabi’s airport, a minimum of one particular person was killed and 7 wounded throughout what the ability’s authority referred to as an “incident”. Dubai’s airport, the world’s busiest for worldwide site visitors, and Kuwait’s airport had been additionally hit.
Meanwhile, Qatari officials said Iran launched 65 missiles and 12 drones in direction of the Gulf state on Saturday, most of which had been intercepted, however 16 individuals had been injured within the assaults.
Elsewhere within the area, Jordanian defence programs intercepted missiles that entered the airspace of the capital, Amman, and the nation’s northern areas, in response to Al Jazeera Arabic. Sirens had been additionally heard in Kuwait, the community reported.
In northern Iraq, a drone crashed close to Erbil International Airport, in response to native media experiences, with a big plume of smoke rising. The US is reported to nonetheless have troopers in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish area, whose capital is Erbil, as a part of a world coalition towards ISIL (ISIS).
Turkiye’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, spoke by cellphone with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Sunday, expressing concern that, “unless the necessary intervention is made”, the battle unfolding in Iran may have “serious” regional and international implications.
The leaders of the E3 (UK, France and Germany) condemned ongoing Iranian assaults on bases utilized by US forces within the area and stated Iran’s assaults had focused allies and had been “threatening our service personnel and our civilians across the region.”
“We call on Iran to stop these reckless attacks immediately. We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source,” a joint assertion learn, including that they had agreed to work with the US and allies within the area.
Meanwhile, a US official instructed Al Jazeera that Washington anticipated the battle with Iran to “last for weeks, not just days” and it’ll proceed till it will probably assure Iran doesn’t possess nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles.
‘A great crime’
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has denounced Khamenei’s killing “as a great crime”. The Iranian army’s chief of employees, Abdul Rahim Mousavi, has additionally been killed within the US-Israeli assaults.
Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, stated in a televised handle on Sunday that “you [the US and Israel] have crossed our red line and must pay the price.” “We will deliver such devastating blows that you yourselves will be driven to beg,” he stated.
Trump stated the US will hit Iran “with a force that has never been seen before” if the Middle East nation hits again over the killing of Khamenei, who dominated the nation for 37 years.
“Iran just stated that they are going to hit very hard today, harder than they have ever been hit before,” Trump stated in a publish on Truth Social. “THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT, HOWEVER, BECAUSE IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!”
More than 200 individuals killed in Iran
Israel’s army early on Sunday stated it had struck greater than 30 targets in assaults on western and central Iran, saying that strikes would proceed on Iranian air defence installations, missile websites, army headquarters and different “regime targets”.
Since Saturday, a minimum of 201 individuals have been killed in Iran, together with a minimum of 148 individuals in an assault on an elementary ladies faculty within the southern metropolis of Minab.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stated it was finishing up retaliatory assaults on 27 army bases the place US troopers are deployed, the Israeli Tel Nof Airbase, the Israeli military’s command headquarters at HaKirya in Tel Aviv and a big defence industrial advanced within the metropolis.
Shortly after 6am (03:00 GMT), air raid sirens had been repeatedly sounded throughout Israel, together with in Tel Aviv, after a sequence of explosions had been heard.
The Iranian authorities has introduced the formation of a three-person interim council to supervise the transition after the dying of the supreme chief as his supporters took to the streets of Tehran and different cities in mourning.
Pezeshkian additionally declared seven days of public holidays along with the 40 days of mourning introduced by the federal government.
