Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, issued his first public remarks Thursday pledging to keep fighting and warning of further escalation that would bring more pain for Gulf Arab states. The remarks came as Israel and the United States continued strikes during a widening regional conflict that has disrupted global energy supplies, markets and international travel.
Early Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a new threat to Iran online, writing: “Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today.” In the same post, Trump tallied what he described as damage inflicted on Iran and its leaders and called it a “great honor” to be responsible for it.
The statements by Khamenei and Trump followed comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said Israel’s attacks were creating conditions for the Iranian population to topple the government. At a news conference, Netanyahu told Iranian people, “It is in your hands,” and said Israel was “creating the optimal conditions for the fall of the regime.”
Khamenei, who the article described as closely associated with Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, was denounced by Netanyahu as a “puppet of the Revolutionary Guards.” Khamenei’s remarks were delivered in a statement read by a state TV news anchor, and the article said he kept a “file of revenge.” He did not appear on camera, and the article said he had not been seen since his father and wife were killed in the war’s opening salvo, according to an Iranian ambassador.
The conflict’s operational impact has included disruption around Iran’s capital. The article said intense airstrikes hit early Friday around Tehran and outlying areas, though it was not immediately clear what was targeted.
The energy shock has intensified in parallel with the military escalation. The war continued to escalate on its 13th day, the article said, with oil prices rising to $100 per barrel and stocks sinking worldwide as investors worried the conflict could drag on longer than hoped. To relieve the surge, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it was further easing sanctions on Russian oil by granting a license that authorizes the delivery and sale of some Russian crude oil and petroleum products for the next month, with the article saying the exemption applies only to Russian oil already at sea.
Analysts estimated about 125 million barrels of oil were loaded on tankers, the article said, compared with about 20 million barrels of oil per day that usually pass through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the International Energy Agency. The article also said Iran had made clear it planned to keep attacking energy infrastructure across the region and to use the effective closure of the strait as leverage against the United States and Israel, noting that a fifth of the world’s traded oil flows through the waterway from the Persian Gulf toward the Indian Ocean.
In separate remarks reported by the article, Iran’s ambassador to Tunisia, Mir Masoud Hosseinian, said Iranian naval forces “have established full control” over the strait and “carried out precise strikes in response to attacks on our oil infrastructure.” He added, “Global energy security is contingent on respect for Iran’s sovereignty.” Hosseinian also told The Associated Press that the new supreme leader was wounded in the attack on his family’s home but said “it is not serious,” and the article said the hope was Khamenei would attend an Eid prayer next week.
The pinch was being felt beyond the region, the article said, including in South Korea, where government-set caps on oil prices were reinstated for the first time in three decades. The two-week caps, which took effect Friday, set maximum prices for petroleum products supplied by refiners to gas stations and other businesses.
The article also reported continued strikes and military activity across the Middle East, including Israel’s attacks in Lebanon and strikes in Iraq. It said Israeli warplanes pummeled Beirut, including in the busy heart of the city, and quoted Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee as saying forces were targeting a “facility affiliated with Hezbollah.” In Iraq, the article said French President Emmanuel Macron announced a French soldier was killed in an attack targeting Irbil, and the article reported that the U.S. military said American forces had struck more than 6,000 targets since the operation against Iran began.