TEL AVIV/DUBAI, March 1 — Israel said it launched another wave of strikes on Iran on Sunday, as Iranians grappled with uncertainty after the killing of their supreme leader in United States (US) and Israeli strikes that threatens to destabilise the wider Middle East.
Hours after both nations said an air strike killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the military campaign to overthrow the government of the Islamic Republic, its state media confirmed the 86-year-old leader's death on Saturday.
Witnesses said that several loud blasts were heard for a second day on Sunday in the area of the regional business hub Dubai and over Qatar's capital Doha, after Iran launched retaliatory strikes on the neighbouring Gulf states in response to the strikes.
Iran, which has said it would target US bases if attacked, hit a range of other targets, keeping the major oil-producing Gulf on edge.
Air raid sirens sounded repeatedly across Israel early on Sunday, with a series of explosions heard in Tel Aviv as Israel’s sophisticated air defence system sought to intercept the latest Iranian offensive. There was no immediate report of damage or injuries.
Trump says strikes aim to end Iran threat
US President Donald Trump said the air strikes aimed to end a decades-long threat from Iran and ensure it could not develop a nuclear weapon.
He sought to justify a risky gambit that seemed to contradict his professed opposition to American involvement in complex overseas conflicts.
"This is not only Justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans, and those people from many Countries throughout the World, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump and his close ally Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Iranians that the attacks offered them a rare chance to topple their clerical leaders.
The leadership had already been under pressure from an economy hammered by sanctions, protesters who proved ready again to take to the streets despite fierce crackdowns and regional proxies severely weakened by Israeli attacks.
Two US sources and a US official familiar with the matter said that Jerusalem and Washington timed the attacks to coincide with a meeting of Khamenei and his top aides.
Iranian state media reported that Khamenei was working in his office at the time of Saturday's attack. It also killed his daughter, grandchild, daughter-in-law, and son-in-law.
Experts said that while the deaths of Khamenei and other Iranian leaders would deal the country a major blow, it would not necessarily spell the end of Iran's entrenched clerical rule or the Revolutionary Guards' sway over the population.
Trump evoked the 1979 storming of the US Embassy in Tehran, when Iranian student activists in coordination with radical clerics took 52 American hostages for 444 days, demanding the extradition of the deposed Shah from the US.
Israel's military said it targeted Iran’s ballistic missile and air defence systems with strikes on Sunday morning.
In a statement on Sunday, the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vowed that Iran's Armed Forces would soon retaliate again with their biggest offensive against US bases and Israel.
Iran responded to Saturday's initial attacks by launching hundreds of missiles and drones targeting US troops and cities in Israel and Arab countries allied with Washington, prompting widespread cancellations of Middle East flights. The Pentagon said there were no US deaths or injuries.
Iran pounds key regional facilities
Major Middle Eastern airports, including Dubai, the world’s busiest international travel hub, were shut on Saturday after Iran's missile retaliation unleashed one of global aviation's most severe disruptions in years.
Dubai's landmark Burj Al Arab hotel and the airport, which handles more than 1,000 flights a day, were damaged in an overnight attack on sites across the Arab Gulf states that also hit airports in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait.
On Saturday, Tehran warned that it had closed the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow conduit for about a fifth of global oil consumption, raising expectations of a sharp jump in oil prices.
OPEC+ major oil producers are set to meet on Sunday and may consider a larger-than-planned output increase, as several tanker owners, oil majors, and trading houses have suspended energy shipments through the Strait.
After Israel pounded Iran in a 12-day air war in June, joined by the US, both warned they would strike again if Tehran persisted with nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Saturday that hundreds of civilians were killed and injured in the US and Israeli strikes.
Iravani called Iran's retaliatory attacks a matter of self-defence, saying the bases of hostile forces were legitimate military targets.
Witnesses said some Iranians took to the streets in Tehran, the nearby city of Karaj and the central city of Isfahan to celebrate after reports of Khamenei's death.
Videos posted on social media, which Reuters was unable to immediately verify, also showed celebrations elsewhere.
