Israel says it killed 2 top Iranian officials in wartime blow to country’s leadership

Is­rael said Tues­day it killed two se­nior Iran­ian se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials in overnight strikes in a ma­jor blow to the coun­try’s lead­er­ship. Iran, which did not im­me­di­ate­ly con­firm ei­ther death, fired new salvos of mis­siles and drones at its Gulf Arab neigh­bours and Is­rael in a war that showed no signs of abat­ing.

Ali Lar­i­jani, sec­re­tary of Iran’s Supreme Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, and Gen. Gho­lam Reza Soleimani, the head of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard’s all-vol­un­teer Basij force, were “elim­i­nat­ed last night,” Is­raeli De­fense Min­is­ter Is­rael Katz said. Lar­i­jani was con­sid­ered one of the most pow­er­ful fig­ures in the coun­try since Supreme Leader Ay­a­tol­lah Ali Khamenei was killed in an airstrike on the first day of the war.

Both men were key to Iran’s vi­o­lent crack­down on protests in Jan­u­ary that chal­lenged the theoc­ra­cy’s 47-year rule. The killings would strip Iran of im­por­tant lead­ers dur­ing a war that presents that great­est test for the Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic in re­cent decades.

With con­cerns grow­ing about a glob­al en­er­gy cri­sis, Iran launched fresh at­tacks against sev­er­al of its Gulf Arab neigh­bours and oil in­fra­struc­ture through­out the re­gion. Dubai, a ma­jor tran­sit hub for in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el, briefly shut its air­space, the sec­ond dis­rup­tion to flights in the city in as many days. An Iran­ian of­fi­cial said Tehran had no in­ten­tion of re­lin­quish­ing its tight grip on ship­ping through the Strait of Hor­muz, a cru­cial wa­ter­way for oil.

On Tues­day, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said NA­TO and most oth­er al­lies have re­ject­ed his calls to help se­cure the strait as the war rages on.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said it had be­gun a “wide-scale wave of strikes” across Iran’s cap­i­tal and was step­ping up strikes on Iran-backed Hezbol­lah mil­i­tants in Lebanon.

Is­rael says it has killed two top Iran­ian of­fi­cials

Lar­i­jani hails from one of Iran’s best-known po­lit­i­cal fam­i­lies. A for­mer par­lia­men­tary speak­er and se­nior pol­i­cy ad­vis­er, he ad­vised the late Khamenei on strat­e­gy in nu­clear talks with the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Lar­i­jani was sanc­tioned by the U.S. Trea­sury in Jan­u­ary for his role in “co­or­di­nat­ing” Iran’s vi­o­lent sup­pres­sion na­tion­wide protests. Soleimani was sanc­tioned by the U.S., as well as by the Eu­ro­pean Union and oth­er na­tions, over his role in help­ing sup­press dis­sent for years through the Basij.

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu said the killings were aimed at weak­en­ing Iran’s gov­ern­ment. “We are un­der­min­ing this regime to give the Iran­ian peo­ple the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­move it. It won’t hap­pen quick­ly or eas­i­ly, but if we per­sist, they will have the chance to take their des­tiny in­to their own hands,” he said.

There have been no signs of an­ti-gov­ern­ment protests since the war be­gan, as many Ira­ni­ans are shel­ter­ing from the Amer­i­can and Is­raeli strikes.

The re­port­ed killings of Lar­i­jani and Soleimani came on the eve of “Cha­har­shanbe Souri,” or the Fes­ti­val of Fire, in Iran on Tues­day night and short­ly be­fore the Per­sian new year.

State me­dia aired footage Tues­day of pro-gov­ern­ment demon­stra­tions, in­clud­ing im­ages of some men in plain­clothes brand­ing as­sault ri­fles and shot­guns on the back of mo­tor­cy­cles — a sign of the gov­ern­ment want­i­ng to pre­vent re­newed protests against the theoc­ra­cy.

Iran­ian strikes pres­sure neigh­bours and oil mar­kets

Iran kept up the pres­sure on its neigh­bours and en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture around the re­gion, hit­ting an oil fa­cil­i­ty in Fu­jairah, an emi­rate in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates that has been re­peat­ed­ly tar­get­ed.

A man was killed by the de­bris of a mis­sile in­ter­cept­ed over Abu Dhabi, the eighth per­son to die in the UAE since the start of the war, au­thor­i­ties said.

Sau­di Ara­bia said it in­ter­cept­ed drones, while air de­fens­es could be heard tar­get­ing in­com­ing fire over Qatar’s cap­i­tal, Do­ha. At­tacks from Iran-linked proxy forces con­tin­ued in Iraq, where the U.S. Em­bassy in Bagh­dad was hit with shrap­nel from in­ter­cept­ed drones.

Iran’s at­tacks on Gulf na­tions and its grip on the Strait of Hor­muz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is trans­port­ed, have sparked in­creas­ing con­cerns of a glob­al en­er­gy cri­sis and are un­nerv­ing the world econ­o­my.

A hand­ful of ships have crossed through the strait, and Iran has said the wa­ter­way tech­ni­cal­ly re­mains open — just not for the Unit­ed States, Is­rael and their al­lies. About 20 ves­sels have been struck since the war be­gan.

With oil prices ris­ing, Trump said he had de­mand­ed that rough­ly a half-dozen coun­tries send war­ships to en­sure ships can pass through the strait. But his ap­peals brought no im­me­di­ate com­mit­ments, with many say­ing they are hes­i­tant to get in­volved in a war with no de­fined ex­it plan.

Trump fumed Tues­day that the U.S. is not get­ting sup­port “de­spite the fact that al­most every coun­try strong­ly agreed with what we are do­ing, and that Iran can­not” be al­lowed to se­cure a nu­clear weapon.

French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron ear­li­er reaf­firmed that France is ready to help se­cure the strait, but on­ly af­ter heavy bomb­ing has stopped and as part of a mis­sion sep­a­rate from the on­go­ing con­flict.

Is­rael launch­es new at­tacks on Tehran and steps up strikes on Beirut

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary ear­ly Tues­day said it had launched new at­tacks across Tehran and tar­get­ed Hezbol­lah mil­i­tants in the Lebanese cap­i­tal. Hezbol­lah be­gan fir­ing rock­ets in­to the north­ern Is­rael af­ter the U.S. and Is­rael at­tacked Iran last month.

In Iran, it said it hit com­mand cen­tres, mis­sile launch sites and air de­fense sys­tems. There was no im­me­di­ate con­fir­ma­tion from Iran, where lit­tle in­for­ma­tion has been com­ing out due to in­ter­net out­ages, round-the-clock airstrikes and tight re­stric­tions on jour­nal­ists.

More than 1,300 peo­ple have been killed in Iran since the start of the con­flict, ac­cord­ing to the Iran­ian Red Cres­cent.

Is­rael did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­lease de­tails of its at­tacks on Lebanon, but the Lebanese army said that one of its sol­diers died and four more were wound­ed in an airstrike on the vil­lage of Kfar Sir. Two more sol­diers were killed in an­oth­er Is­raeli strike near the south­ern city of Nabatiyeh, the army said, and an airstrike near Beirut’s in­ter­na­tion­al air­port killed one per­son and wound­ed nine, ac­cord­ing to the Lebanese Health Min­istry.

Is­rael’s strikes have dis­placed more than 1 mil­lion Lebanese — or rough­ly 20% of the pop­u­la­tion — ac­cord­ing to the Lebanese gov­ern­ment, which says 912 peo­ple have been killed since the out­break of a new Is­rael-Hezbol­lah war two weeks ago.

Is­rael re­port­ed two Iran­ian salvos ear­ly Tues­day fired to­ward Tel Aviv and an area south of the Sea of Galilee, and then more lat­er in the day. More launch­es from Lebanon were al­so re­port­ed.

In Is­rael, 12 peo­ple have been killed by Iran­ian mis­sile fire. At least 13 U.S. mil­i­tary mem­bers have been killed.

Top US coun­tert­er­ror­ism of­fi­cial quits over Iran war

A top U.S. coun­tert­er­ror­ism of­fi­cial re­signed Tues­day, cit­ing con­cerns about the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for mil­i­tary strikes in Iran. Joe Kent, the di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Coun­tert­er­ror­ism Cen­ter, said he “can­not in good con­science” back the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion’s war.

His res­ig­na­tion re­flects un­ease about the war with­in Trump’s po­lit­i­cal base just as midterm elec­tion races start to heat up.

Trump’s MA­GA coali­tion is splin­ter­ing over what it sees as the pres­i­dent’s fail­ure to keep his “Amer­i­ca First” cam­paign promise by lead­ing the U.S. in­to a war that is dri­ving up gas prices. —DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP)

__________

Sto­ry by JON GAM­BRELL, DAVID RIS­ING, MIKE CORDER and SAMY MAGDY | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

David Ris­ing re­port­ed from Bangkok, Mike Corder from The Hague, Nether­lands, and Samy Magdy from Cairo. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Qas­sim Ab­dul-Zahra in Bagh­dad; and Bassem Mroue in Beirut con­tributed to this re­port.