Iran’s new leader vows continued fight as war escalates
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, issued his first public remarks on Thursday, saying Iran would keep fighting and warning Gulf Arab states that the conflict could expand beyond its current battlefield. In the remarks, state television delivered through a news anchor, Khamenei said he was keeping a “file of revenge” and did not appear on camera. His statements came as intense airstrikes hit early Friday around Tehran and surrounding areas, though it was not immediately clear what targets were hit.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at a news conference, said Israel’s strikes were creating conditions for the Iranian public to topple the government. “It is in your hands,” Netanyahu said to Iranian people, adding, “We are creating the optimal conditions for the fall of the regime.” Netanyahu also denounced Khamenei as a “puppet of the Revolutionary Guards,” portraying the new leader as closely aligned with Iran’s powerful paramilitary force.
Early Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump issued another threat to Iran online. In the post cited by AP, Trump wrote: “Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today.” The same online message also asserted Trump’s tally of damage inflicted on Iran and its leaders and called it a “great honor” to be responsible.
Reports on the broader campaign also pointed to pressure on the Iranian state’s ability to suppress dissent. Since the start of the war, U.S. and Israeli strikes have targeted security checkpoints in Iran, according to ACLED, the U.S.-based monitoring group that tracks conflict events.
Oil prices surge as U.S. and allies try to ease supply pressure
As the fighting escalated, oil prices rose again to $100 per barrel and stocks sank worldwide, with investors weighing concerns the conflict could last longer than expected. The AP report said the escalation occurred as global energy supplies faced repeated disruption, including at key maritime chokepoints.
To relieve the surge, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it was easing sanctions on Russian oil further by granting a license that authorizes the delivery and sale of some Russian crude oil and petroleum products for the next month. The move followed earlier signals from Trump that the administration would take additional steps to address strains on oil flows, including temporary permission for India to buy Russian oil. The new exemption, AP said, applies only to Russian oil already at sea, with analysts estimating about 125 million barrels loaded on tankers, compared with typical throughput through the Strait of Hormuz of about 20 million barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency.
Iran and its officials also described shutting down or controlling energy routes as leverage. AP reported that Iran planned to keep attacking energy infrastructure across the region and use an effective closure of the strait as bargaining power. The report cited a regional figure, Iran’s ambassador to Tunisia, Mir Masoud Hosseinian, who said in an interview that Iranian naval forces “have established full control” over the strait and carried out “precise strikes” in response to attacks on Iran’s oil infrastructure.
Hosseinian also told AP that global energy security depended on respect for Iran’s sovereignty. South Korea, feeling the pinch, reinstated government-set caps on oil prices for the first time in three decades, setting maximum prices for petroleum products supplied by refiners to gas stations and other businesses under two-week caps taking effect Friday.
Iran calls for Gulf shutdown of U.S. bases as other fighting widens
Beyond energy, Iranian officials framed the conflict as an opportunity to force strategic withdrawals. Hosseinian told AP that Iran’s new supreme leader was wounded in the attack on his family’s home, and that it was “not serious,” while also describing expectations for the leader to attend Eid prayers next week. The ambassador also said Khamenei remains a target for Israel, which has vowed to kill him.
Hosseinian said Khamenei called on Gulf Arabs to “shut down” U.S. bases in the region and argued that protection promised by Washington was “nothing more than a lie.” In the same set of remarks reported by AP, Khamenei also called for Iran to study “opening other fronts” in a way that he said would expose the enemy’s weaknesses if the war continues, while not providing additional details.
In parallel, other regional military activity continued into Friday. Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry said its air defenses downed more than three dozen drones headed toward the kingdom’s Eastern Province over a few hours, describing an unusually large barrage. AP also reported that U.S. forces had struck more than 6,000 targets since the Iran operation began, including more than 30 minelaying vessels.
The fighting extended beyond the immediate Iran-Israel arena. French President Emmanuel Macron said in comments reported by AP that a French soldier was killed in an attack targeting Irbil in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region. France earlier said six soldiers were hurt in a drone strike in Irbil, where French troops operate as part of a multinational counterterrorism mission supporting Iraqi forces fighting Islamic State militants. British officials also said some U.S. personnel suffered minor injuries Wednesday when drone strikes hit a base in Irbil that houses both British and American troops. On Thursday in western Iraq, AP reported that rescue efforts were underway after a U.S. military refueling plane went down, with U.S. Central Command saying two aircraft were involved and that the cause was not related to friendly or hostile fire.
Israel strikes Beirut amid Hezbollah-linked attacks
In Lebanon, AP reported that Israeli warplanes pounded Beirut’s city center and other areas, including the heart of the capital, in response to missiles fired into Israel by Hezbollah fighters backed by Iran. One strike hit a neighborhood near Lebanon’s parliament, United Nations offices and international embassies, while another hit near the vicinity of Lebanon’s only public university, killing a professor and the director of the science faculty at the campus in Hadath, on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to AP. AP also reported that Israeli strikes killed 15 other people in southern Lebanon, including five children, citing the Lebanese Health Ministry, and that an AP photographer saw buildings flattened in a village where rescue workers searched through rubble.