By JON GAMBRELL, DAVID RISING, MIKE CORDER and SAMY MAGDY Associated Press
Updated
Israel says it has killed two senior Iranian security officials in a major blow to the country's leadership. Iran, which confirmed one killing, fired salvos of missiles and drones Tuesday at its Gulf Arab neighbors and Israel. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced the deaths of Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, and Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard's all-volunteer Basij force. The Iranian judiciary's news agency, Mizan, confirmed the killing of Soleimani and did not confirm nor deny the death of Larijani. Larijani was considered one of the most powerful figures in the country since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the war.
By JON GAMBRELL, DAVID RISING, MIKE CORDER and NATALIE MELZER Associated Press
Iran's new supreme leader released his first statement since succeeding his late father. Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said Thursday that Iran would keep up its attacks on its Gulf Arab neighbors and use the effective closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz as leverage against the United States and Israel. Khamenei, 56, who Israel suspects was wounded in the opening salvo of the war, did not appear on camera, as his statement was read by a state TV news anchor. The statement included a vow to avenge those killed in the war, including in a strike on a school that killed over 165 people.
The investigative group Bellingcat says newly released video "appears to contradict" U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that Iran was responsible for an explosion at an Iranian school that killed over 165 people. The video shared by Bellingcat is a three-second clip of a video on the day the school was struck, circulated Sunday by Iran's semiofficial Mehr news agency. The video shows a munition falling on a building. A Bellingcat researcher identified the munition as a Tomahawk cruise missile — which only the U.S. is known to possess in this war.
By JON GAMBRELL, JAMEY KEATEN and SAMY MAGDY Associated Press
Oil prices surged and stock markets slid after hard-line Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen to succeed his late father as Iran's supreme leader. His appointment on Monday, and new strikes on regional oil infrastructure, signaled that Iran was digging in 10 days into the war launched by the United States and Israel. The war has choked off major supplies of oil and gas to world markets, led foreigners to flee from business hubs and prompted millions to seek shelter as bombs hit military bases, government buildings, oil and water installations, hotels and at least one school. Khamenei is a secretive 56-year-old cleric and only the third supreme leader in the history of the Islamic Republic.
By JULIA FRANKEL and MICHAEL BIESECKER Associated Press
Satellite images and videos of an Iranian girls school damaged by large explosions at the start of a U.S.-Israeli airstrike campaign targeting the Islamic Republic indicate a targeted attack from the air hit the building. That's according to military experts who spoke to The Associated Press. Iran says the blast killed at least 165 people, most of them children. The location of the strike, its affiliation to a coastal defense unit of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and the tight pattern of the damage suggest a targeted airstrike on the site. Several factors point to a U.S. strike, given the proximity of American forces to the school and focus on missile sites and naval forces in the war.
Many Iranians are worried as the United States assembles its greatest military firepower in decades in the Middle East and the next round of talks in Geneva get closer. There is a belief that the talks on Thursday may give their country's theocracy its last chance to strike a deal with President Donald Trump. There is also a feeling of hopelessness in a country battered by decades of sanctions, heightened by Trump's 2018 decision to withdraw from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers. Iranians also last month suffered through the bloodiest crackdown on dissent in the country's modern history, with security forces killing thousands of people and detaining tens of thousands more.
By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN and FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press
The White House says talks between special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian officials are still planned after a Navy fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone that was approaching a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea. U.S. Central Command said Tuesday the drone "aggressively approached" the aircraft carrier and kept flying toward it "despite de-escalatory measures taken by U.S. forces." The U.S. military says the shootdown occurred within hours of another incident in which Iranian forces harassed a U.S.-flagged merchant vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's president says he's instructed his foreign minister to pursue fair negotiations with the U.S. The White House says President Donald Trump wants to "pursue diplomacy first."
Iran says it has had summoned all of the European Union ambassadors in the country to protest the bloc's listing of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a terror group. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told journalists on Monday that the ambassadors had been summoned the previous day. The EU listed the Guard as a terror group last week over its part in the crackdown on nationwide protests in January. The move is largely symbolic. But it does add to the economic pressure squeezing Iran.
Iran's top prosecutor has called U.S. President Donald Trump's about halting the hangings of 800 detained protesters "completely false." Activists say Iran's crackdown has already killed at least 5,032 people. The internet blackout in Iran has lasted over two weeks, making it hard to confirm information. Meanwhile, tensions between the U.S. and Iran remain high as an American aircraft carrier group moves closer to the Middle East. Analysts say this could give Trump the option to carry out strikes, though he has avoided that so far despite warnings to Tehran.
Exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has outlined his vision for a democratic Iran on social media. His plan includes ending a pursuit of nuclear weapons, confronting drug trafficking, and recognizing Israel. Experts say his proposals, which were expressed in English and not Farsi, seem more aimed at impressing U.S. President Donald Trump than resonating with Iranians. Pahlavi's influence is unclear, as nearly 50 years of theocratic rule have stifled the opposition. While some Iranians chant his name, experts believe it's due to a lack of alternatives. Pahlavi's appeal is limited by his family's long exile, as well as by bitter memories among Iranians of his father's rule.
