DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s secretive new supreme leader vowed Thursday to keep up attacks on Gulf Arab countries and use the effective closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz as leverage against the United States and Israel. It was his first public statement since he succeeded his father, who was killed in an Israeli strike.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, who an Iranian official said was wounded in the opening salvo of the war, has not appeared in public since then. In the statement read by a state TV news anchor, he vowed to avenge those killed in the war, including in a strike on a school that killed over 165 people.
His comments signaled no plans for talks to end the war, which has disrupted global energy supplies, international travel and the relative safety enjoyed by the Gulf Arab states.
Netanyahu urges Iranians to act on ‘new path of freedom’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the new supreme leader as a “puppet of the Revolutionary Guards” who cannot appear in public. And he addressed the Iranian people, calling this a moment for a “new path of freedom.”
But “at the end of the day, it depends on you. It is in your hands,” he added at a news conference. “We are creating the optimal conditions for the fall of the regime.”
U.S. and Israeli strikes have exacted a heavy toll on Iran’s leadership, military and ballistic missile program but have failed to topple the government, which U.S. President Donald Trump has at times suggested is his goal.
Netanyahu said Israeli attacks had killed a top Iranian nuclear scientist and hit others.
The U.S. and Israel say that destroying whatever remains of Iran’s nuclear program is one of the central aims of the war. They have long suspected Iran seeks nuclear weapons, while the Islamic Republic says its nuclear program is peaceful.
Since the start of the war, U.S. and Israeli strikes have targeted security checkpoints in Iran to undermine the government’s ability to suppress dissent, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, the U.S-based independent monitoring group known as ACLED.
Israel said earlier it struck a nuclear facility in Iran in recent days that it had destroyed with an airstrike in October 2024. Earlier this year, satellite photos raised concerns that Iran was working to restore the facility.
As Netanyahu spoke, the Israeli military said it had detected a new barrage of missiles launched from Iran toward Israel.
US refueling plane goes down in Iraq
Rescue efforts were underway after an American military refueling plane went down in Iraq, the U.S. military said Thursday.
The KC-135 aircraft is part of the operation against Iran, but the crash was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire, the military said.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said in a statement that two aircraft were involved. One landed safely, while the other went down in western Iraq.
A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a developing situation, said the other plane involved also was a KC-135 tanker.
Trump says rising oil prices are a lower priority
Iran is trying to inflict enough global economic pain to pressure the United States and Israel to halt their bombardment, which began on Feb. 28.
Trump has promised to “finish the job,” even though he claimed Iran is “virtually destroyed.” He said in a social media post Thursday that ensuring Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon was a higher priority than soaring oil prices.
The U.S. military said Thursday that American forces have now struck more than 6,000 targets since the operation against Iran began, including more than 30 minelaying vessels.
Meanwhile, Iran-backed Hezbollah militants launched some 200 rockets from Lebanon at northern Israel while sirens rang out and loud booms from the interception of Iranian missiles could be heard in other areas. Israel launched another wave of attacks on Tehran and in Lebanon.
The U.N. refugee agency said up to 3.2 million people in Iran have been displaced by the ongoing war. It said most have fled from Tehran and other major cities toward the north of the country or rural areas. Around 800,000 people have been internally displaced in Lebanon, prompting fears of a humanitarian crisis.
Khamenei warns of ‘opening other fronts’ if war continues
Khamenei called on Gulf Arabs to “shut down” U.S. bases in the region, saying protection promised by Washington was “nothing more than a lie.”
He also said Iran has studied “opening other fronts in which the enemy has little experience and would be highly vulnerable” if the war continues. He did not elaborate, but Iran has been linked to previous attacks on U.S., Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.
Khamenei is close to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and is widely seen as even less compromising than his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His location is unknown, and he is likely a prime target for the U.S. and Israel.
In addition to attacking energy infrastructure across the region, Iran has also effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway leading from the Persian Gulf toward the Indian Ocean through which a fifth of the world's traded oil flows.
At a news conference Thursday, 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.”
“Global energy security is contingent on respect for Iran’s sovereignty,” he said.
He told The Associated Press the new supreme leader was wounded in the attack on his family’s home that killed his wife and father, but “it is not serious.” The hope is he will attend the massive, state-organized Eid prayer next week that his father traditionally led.
Hosseinian added that Iran's strikes on Gulf nations have also been strategic.
“Even when we targeted hotels, we had precise information that they were hosting American and Israeli soldiers,” he said.
The war sent oil prices back to $100 per barrel, and stocks sank worldwide.
Israel and Hezbollah trade heavy fire
Israeli warplanes pummeled Lebanon, targeting even the busy heart of Beirut, in response to missiles from Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters launched into Israel. One strike hit in a neighborhood that is close to Lebanon’s parliament, United Nations offices and international embassies.
Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said they were targeting a “facility affiliated with Hezbollah.”
An Israeli strike also hit in 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. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Lebanon that if its government does not prevent Hezbollah from attacking, Israel “will take the territory and do it ourselves.”
Lebanon’s government has ramped up calls for Hezbollah to disarm since the group’s last war with Israel was halted by a 2024 ceasefire, and earlier this month declared Hezbollah’s military activities illegal. But it has been reluctant to confront the militants directly.
Iran fires at Gulf Arab countries and hits ship in Persian Gulf
British officials said several U.S. personnel were injured Wednesday night in drone strikes in northern Iraq.
Brig. Guy Foden said a number of drones hit a base in Irbil that houses both British and American troops. Another officer, Lt. Gen. Nick Perry, said there were no British casualties, while the U.S. sustained some casualties but “nothing too serious.”
More drone strikes were also reported in Bahrain, Kuwait, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
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Melzer reported from Mitzpe Hila, Israel. Rising reported from Bangkok, and Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands. Associated Press writers Ghaya Ben Mbarek in Tunis, Tunisia; Koral Saeed in Herzliya, Israel; Sally Abou AlJoud, Kareem Chehayeb and Sarah El-Deeb in Beirut; Luena Rodriguez-Feo Vileira in Washington; and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.
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This version corrects that a U.S. Central Command statement did not say the refueling aircraft belongs to the Air Force and that a U.S. official, not the statement, said the second aircraft also was a KC-135 tanker.
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