Iran’s Supreme Leader Resolves To Keep Fighting In His First Public Remarks

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s secretive new leader made his first public statement Thursday, vowing to keep fighting, promising more pain to Gulf Arab states and threatening to open “other fronts” in a war already disrupting world energy supplies, the global economy and international travel.

The strict stance put forward by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei It came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country’s attacks were creating conditions for the Iranian people to overthrow the government.

“This is in your hands,” Netanyahu said at a press conference addressing the Iranian people. “We are creating the most favorable conditions for the regime to fall.”

Since the start of the war, U.S. and Israeli attacks have targeted security checkpoints in Iran to undermine the government’s ability to suppress dissent, according to the independent U.S.-based monitoring group Armed Conflict Location and Event Data. as ACLED.

Netanyahu accused Khamenei of being a “puppet of the Revolutionary Guards”.

Khamenei is close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and is seen as even less conciliatory than his father, the Ayatollah. Ali Khamenei.

In a statement read by a state television news anchor, Khamenei said he was keeping a “revenge dossier.” According to the Iranian ambassador, he has not appeared and has not been seen on camera since his father and wife were killed in the opening salvo of the war, who was also injured.

As oil prices rose again, the war continued to escalate on its 13th day up to $100 per barreland stocks fell around the world on fears that the conflict could last longer than hoped.

To mitigate the rise in prices, the US Treasury Department announced that it will further ease sanctions on Russian oil by issuing a license allowing the delivery and sale of some Russian crude oil and oil products for the next month.

Trump signaled earlier this week that he would take further steps to address the contraction in oil flows. The move follows the Trump administration’s decision to grant temporary permission to India to purchase Russian oil.

The new Treasury Department exemption applies only to Russian oil already at sea. Last week, analysts predicted Approximately 125 million barrels were loaded onto tankers. To put this in perspective, around 20 million barrels of oil usually pass through each day. Strait of HormuzAccording to the International Energy Agency.

Iran has made clear it plans to do this continue attacks Take action on energy infrastructure across the region and use the effective closure of the strategic strait as leverage against the United States and Israel. One-fifth of the oil traded in the world flows through the waterway from the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean.

Iran’s ambassador to Tunisia, Mir Masoud Hosseinian, said at a news conference on Thursday that Iranian naval forces “established complete control” over the strait and “carried out precision strikes in response to attacks on our oil infrastructure.”

“Global energy security depends on respect for Iran’s sovereignty,” he said.

The distress was felt worldwide. South Korea has reimposed government-imposed caps on oil prices for the first time in three decades as it seeks to calm rising fuel costs. The two-week caps, which take effect Friday, set maximum prices for petroleum products supplied by refiners to gas stations and other businesses.

Hosseinian told The Associated Press that the new religious leader was injured in the attack on his family’s home, but “it was nothing serious.” It is hoped that next week he will attend the big state-organized Eid prayer traditionally led by his father. However, Khamenei remains the target of Israelis who have vowed to kill him.

Hosseinian added that Iran’s attacks against the Gulf countries are also strategic.

“Even when we targeted the hotels, we had certain knowledge that they were housing American and Israeli soldiers,” he said.

Khamenei called on Gulf Arabs to “close” US bases in the region and said that the protection promised by Washington was “nothing but a lie”.

He also said Iran was working on “opening up other fronts where the enemy has little experience and will be highly vulnerable” if the war continues. He did not provide details, but Iran is thought to be linked to previous attacks against the US, Israel and Jewish targets around the world.

US President Donald Trump said in a social media post on Thursday that ensuring Iran does not develop nuclear weapons is a higher priority than the rise in oil prices.

Hours later, Netanyahu announced that Israeli strikes had killed a top Iranian nuclear scientist and struck others, but provided few details.

Israel recently announced that it hit a nuclear facility in Iran and destroyed it with an air strike in October 2024. Satellite photos that emerged earlier this year raised concerns that Iran was working to repair the facility.

While Netanyahu was speaking, the Israeli military said it had detected a new barrage of missiles launched from Iran towards Israel.

The U.S. military said American forces have hit more than 6,000 targets since the start of the operation against Iran, including more than 30 minelayers.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, a French soldier was killed in the attack on Erbil in the Kurdish region in the north of the country. French President Emmanuel Macron made the announcement on Friday.

France had previously said six soldiers were injured in a drone attack on Erbil, where French troops were deployed as part of a multinational counter-terrorism mission supporting Iraqi forces in their fight against Islamic State militants.

British officials said that many US personnel were slightly injured in drone attacks on a base hosting both British and American soldiers in Erbil on Wednesday.

In Western Iraq on Thursday, rescue efforts were continuing After the crash of an American military refueling plane. US Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said in a statement that the crash involved two planes, one of which landed safely, and that the cause was not related to conflicts.

Israeli warplanes have bombed Lebanon in response to missiles fired at Israel by Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters, even targeting the bustling heart of Beirut. An attack took place in a neighborhood close to the Lebanese parliament, United Nations offices and international embassies.

Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said forces targeted “a facility affiliated with Hezbollah.”

In the attack carried out by Israel near the only public university in Lebanon, a professor and the director of the science faculty were killed at the Hadath campus in the southern suburbs of Beirut. There has been no statement from Israel yet.

The Lebanese Ministry of Health said that nine people, including five children, were killed and seven people were injured in Israel’s attack on a village in southern Lebanon. An AP photographer who visited the scene saw multiple buildings flattened and widespread destruction as rescue workers searched through the rubble.

Six more people were killed in two other Israeli attacks on separate towns in southern Lebanon, the health ministry said.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said some 3.2 million people in Iran were displaced by the ongoing war. It was stated that most of them fled from Tehran and other major cities towards the north of the country or rural areas. Approximately 800,000 people were victims Internally displaced in LebanonThis situation increases the fear of a humanitarian crisis.

Ben Mbarek reported from Tunisia. El Deeb reported from Beirut. Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers David Rising in Bangkok; Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands; Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea; Natalie Melzer in Mitzpe Hila, Israel; Koral Saeed in Herzliya, Israel; Sally Abou AlJoud and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut; Luena Rodriguez-Feo Vileira, Collin Binkley and Ben Finley in Washington; and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.