Parisa Hafezi, Alexander Cornwell and Enas Alashray
Updated ,first published
Dubai/Tel Aviv: Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib has been killed by Israeli strikes, state television has confirmed.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced Khatib’s killing and said that “significant surprises are expected throughout this day on all the fronts,” without elaborating.
Katz said he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had authorised the military to kill any other senior Iranian official being targeted without the need for additional approval.
The Israeli military said Khatib was killed in a “targeted strike in Tehran”. Iranian state television confirmed the killing hours later.
Khatib’s killing follows Israel’s killing of top Iranian security official Ali Larijani and the head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force, Gholam Reza Soleimani.
Meanwhile, facilities associated with Iran’s massive offshore South Pars natural gas field, which it shares in the Persian Gulf with Qatar, came under attack on Wednesday local time, state media reported.
Iran then issued an evacuation warning for oil facilities including Saudi Arabia’s Samref Refinery and Jubail Petrochemical Complex, the United Arab Emirates’ Al Hosn Gas Field, and Qatar’s Mesaieed Petrochemical Complex, Mesaieed Holding Company and Ras Laffan Refinery.
“These centres have become direct and legitimate targets and will be targeted in the coming hours. Therefore, all citizens, residents, and employees are requested to immediately leave these areas and move to a safe distance without any delay,” the warning said.
Earlier, Iran targeted Tel Aviv with missiles carrying cluster warheads, and Iranian state television claimed the attacks were in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Larijani.
The attack on densely populated Tel Aviv on Tuesday (Israeli time) killed two people, bringing the death toll in Israel from the war to at least 14.
The Iranian government has confirmed the killing of Larijani, the most senior figure targeted since the US-Israeli war’s first day, when an Israeli strike killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which Larijani led as secretary, said Larijani’s son and his deputy, Alireza Bayat, were also killed, in an Israeli attack on Monday night.
The targeted killings took place as the US-Israeli war on Iran shows no signs of de-escalation. US President Donald Trump is still smarting from the lukewarm response to his requests for military help from allies to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Most American allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation have told the US they don’t want to get involved in the conflict, Trump said on Tuesday, describing their position as “a very foolish mistake”.
“Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID!” Trump wrote on social media, also singling out Japan, Australia and South Korea.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in an interview that nobody was ready to risk the lives of their people in protecting the strait.
“We have to find diplomatic ways to keep this open so that we don’t have a food crisis, fertilisers crisis, energy crisis as well,” Kallas said.
The US military has targeted sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz because Iranian anti-ship missiles have posed a risk to international shipping there.
On Wednesday morning (US time) America’s Central Command said it had dropped several two-tonne bombs – colloquially known as “bunker busters” – on Iranian missile sites near the strait, as it attempts to reopen the crucial waterway to global shipping.
“US forces successfully employed multiple 5000-pound [2270-kilogram] deep-penetrator munitions on hardened Iranian missile sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz,” the organisation said.
The US has given shifting rationales for joining Israel in attacking Iran and struggled to explain the legal basis for starting a new war, underscored by the Tuesday resignation of the head of the US National Counterterrorism Centre, Joseph Kent. Kent wrote in his resignation letter to Trump that Iran “posed no imminent threat to our nation”.
Meanwhile, Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has rejected proposals conveyed to Iran’s Foreign Ministry for “reducing tensions or ceasefire with the United States”, a senior Iranian official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.
Khamenei, attending his first foreign-policy meeting since his appointment, said it was not “the right time for peace until the United States and Israel are brought to their knees, accept defeat, and pay compensation”, according to the official.
The official did not clarify whether the younger Khamenei, who has not yet appeared in photos or on TV since being named last week to replace his slain father, had attended the meeting in person or remotely.
US -based Iran human rights group HRANA has said an estimated 3000-plus people have been killed in Iran since the US-Israeli attacks began at the end of February.
Iranian attacks have killed people in Israel, Iraq and the Gulf Arab states, which have faced more than 2000 missile and drone attacks on US diplomatic missions and military bases as well as oil infrastructure, ports, airports, ships and residential and commercial buildings.
Saudi Arabia was to host a consultative meeting of foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic countries in Riyadh on Wednesday to discuss ways to support regional security and stability, the kingdom’s Foreign Ministry said.
Oil prices rose about 3 per cent on Tuesday as Iran renewed its strikes on oil facilities in the United Arab Emirates, and are up about 45 per cent since the start of the war on February 28, raising concerns of a renewed spike in global inflation.
The World Food Program said tens of millions of people would face acute hunger if the war continued until June.
Global airlines sounded the alarm this week over soaring jet fuel prices, warning of hundreds of millions of dollars in extra costs, higher fares and cuts to some routes. Global aviation has been thrown into turmoil, with flights cancelled, rescheduled or rerouted as most Middle East airspace remains closed amid fears of missile and drone attacks.
Reuters, AP
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