In a week in which the US and Israel attacked Iran from the skies in the Middle East, the airstrikes reportedly killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and at least forty senior Iranian officials within five minutes of the start of the bombing on Saturday morning.
Now Day 7, and as other names in the regime are hunted down, hundreds of police and paramilitary bases continue to be bombed, as well as Iran’s ballistic missile and drone launch sites, storage facilities and naval bases. President Trump’s legal justification that Iran poses an imminent threat to Tel Aviv and Washington is controversial. Accounts of the Trump administration’s war plans and those of his team appeared contradictory. The president initially spoke of regime change, telling the Iranian nation to rise up and seize this once in a generation moment. His Secretary of War said it was anything but a regime change.
It’s been a week that has seen tensions spread across the Gulf and into Europe, as Iran retaliated, fired missiles and drone strikes, or accused Washington of aiding Washington, across eleven countries where US bases or troops are stationed. Governments around the world scrambled to evacuate tourists after hotels and airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi were hit. Tehran has targeted fuel depots, embassies and energy infrastructure in Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and a drone attack on a British military base in Cyprus, but the Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced. The world’s oil travels.
It’s a week that has seen Israel resume a bombing campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, hitting the capital Beirut and sending troops south again, in response to rockets and drones fired by the Shiite Muslim militia group that threatened to avenge the killing of the ayatollah. And as the conflict seems to be spreading somewhere new every day, the UK, France and Germany have committed to what they refer to as “defensive action to protect the Gulf countries”. But there were few words of appreciation from President Trump, who was angry about Britain’s delay in landing British troops and aircraft at UK bases, referring to Prime Minister Keir Starmer as having learned lessons from “Iraq’s mistakes” and stipulating that the sites could only be used to avoid targets in England and the Indian Ocean island of Diego. Sites, not administration. A major rift is the so-called special relationship of the past.
Gavin Lee, Theo Varelle, Daniel Whittington and Producers Melissa Kalaidjian.
(tags to translate)Middle East
