Israel launches more strikes aimed at Iran after killing supreme leader in joint assault with US

DUBAI/JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel said it had launched another wave of strikes on Iran on Sunday, as Iranians faced uncertainty after the killing of their supreme leader in US and Israeli attacks that threatened to destabilize the wider Middle East.

Hours after the United States and Israel said that an air strike killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as part of the most ambitious series of attacks on Iran in decades, Iranian state media confirmed the 86-year-old leader's death on Saturday.

US President Donald Trump said the air strikes on Iranian targets were aimed at ending a decades-long threat from Iran and ensuring it could not develop a nuclear weapon as he sought to justify a risky gambit that seemed to go against his professed opposition to American involvement in complex overseas conflicts.

Israel's military said its strikes on Sunday morning targeted Iran’s ballistic missile and air defense systems. Iranian state media said an explosion was heard in Tehran on Sunday morning.

On Saturday, Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones in response to the initial attacks, targeting US troops in the region and cities in Israel and Arab countries allied with Washington and leading to widespread flight cancellations in the region.

The Pentagon said there were no US deaths or injuries, but the strikes raised concerns of new risks for Americans. A senior US intelligence official told Reuters that while the largest threat stemming from the attack was against US military personnel in the Middle East, cyber attacks could also target critical US infrastructure.

Dubai's international airport and its landmark Burj Al Arab hotel sustained damage and four people were injured. Abu Dhabi Airports said in a post on X that an incident at Zayed International Airport in the UAE's capital resulted in one fatality involving an Asian national and seven injuries. It later deleted the post.

Tehran warned on Saturday that the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage through which around a fifth of global oil consumption passes, had been closed, raising expectations of a sharp jump in oil prices.

In a statement early on Sunday, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the country's armed forces soon would retaliate again with their biggest offensive operation ever at US bases and Israel.

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 had been killed and injured in the US and Israeli strikes. Iravani called Iran's retaliatory attacks a matter of self defense, saying the bases of hostile forces are legitimate military targets.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who called for an immediate cessation of hostilities, told the council that he deeply regretted that an opportunity for diplomacy had been "squandered."

SUPREME LEADER KILLED

Israel and the US timed the attacks to coincide with a meeting of Khamenei and his top aides, according to two US sources and a US official familiar with the matter.

Khamenei was working in his office when the attack occurred on Saturday morning, Iranian state media said. His daughter, grandchild, daughter-in-law and son-in-law were also killed, Iranian state media reported.

The Revolutionary Guards issued a statement mourning the loss of "a great leader." Trump, in a social media post, called him "one of the most evil people in History."

Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Iranians to rise up and overthrow their government in the wake of the attacks, which took out at least seven senior military commanders, according to Israel's military.

Experts said that while the deaths of Khamenei and other Iranian leaders would deal a major blow to the country, it would not necessarily spell the end of Iran's entrenched clerical rule or the Revolutionary Guards' sway over the population.

FAILED NEGOTIATIONS

Israeli military operations over the past two years had already killed some of Iran's senior military officials and severely weakened several of Tehran's once-feared proxy forces across the Middle East.

After Israel pounded Iran in a 12-day air war in June, joined by the United States, the US and Israel had warned they would strike again if Iran pressed ahead with its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

During the UN Security Council meeting on Saturday, envoys from Russia and China criticised the US and Israel for launching the strikes while Tehran was negotiating with Washington. Russia's UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya said Iran had been "stabbed in the back" and disputed the US claim that preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon justified the attacks.

Senior US officials said on Saturday that the latest talks showed Iran was not willing to give up its ability to enrich uranium, which the Iranians argued they wanted for nuclear energy but US officials said would enable the country to build a nuclear bomb.