M-East crisis: Israel eliminates Iran’s intel chief, Tehran vows revenge

…Parts of Tehran’s oil, natural gas, missile sites targeted
By Nkiruka Nnorom with agency reports

In furtherance of its clear strategy of decapitation against Iran in the ongoing war, Israel yesterday announced that it had eliminated yet another top ranking Tehran’s official, Intelligence Minister, Esmail Khatib, and authorised its military to kill any senior Islamic republic figure it gets in its sights.

“Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and I have authorised the IDF to eliminate any senior Iranian official for whom the intelligence and operational circle has been closed, without the need for additional approval,” Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, announced

“We will continue to thwart them and to hunt them all down.”

Israel has also vowed to hunt down Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not appeared in public since he succeeded his father. “We will track him down, find him, and neutralize him,” military spokesman, Brigadier General Effie Defrin said.

In response, Tehran vowed to revenge Khatib’s death and that of the other top ranking officials killed a day before, especially Ali Larijani, its National Security Council Secretary, whose death has been described as a bigger loss to Iran than Ali Khamenei.

These came on a day the US President, Donald Trump, suggested that US allies should take responsibility for policing the Strait of Hormuz if his country causes a regime change in Iran, while the NATO military alliance’s members said they were discussing the best way to open the oil route.

Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch, UK’s Conservative Leader, yesterday slammed Trump over his repeated criticisms of Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, describing it as childish.

Vowing to revenge the death of Larijani, Iran’s President, Masoud Pezeshkian, described his death as cowardly assassination and said that Iran’s response to the assassination would be decisive.

“Iran’s response to the assassination of the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council will be decisive and regrettable,” Iranian army chief, Amir Hatami, said in a statement.

The “pure blood of this great martyr… will be a source of honour, power and national awakening against the front of global arrogance,” Hatami added.

Similarly, Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new Supreme Leader, in a statement circulated by Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, said he received news of Larijani’s death with “great regret”, calling him an “intelligent, committed individual” and distinguished figure in Iran’s political establishment.

“The assassination of such a figure undoubtedly shows the extent of his importance and the hatred of the enemies of Islam towards him.

“The anti-Islamists should know that shedding this blood at the foot of the tree of the Islamic system only makes it stronger, and of course, every blood has a price that the criminal murderers of the martyrs must soon pay,” he added.

Iran threatens to retaliate after attack on oil, natural gas sites

Iran further threatened to attack energy infrastructure across the Gulf region in retaliation for Israeli strikes on its largest gasfield, which marked the first targeted attacks on its fossil fuel production since the war began.

The strikes on Iran’s South Pars gasfield, which it shares with Qatar, were widely reported in Israeli media to have been carried out by Israel with the consent of the US. US also struck Iran’s missile sites near Hormuz.

The attack against the heart of Iran’s gas infrastructure marks a key escalation in US and Israeli military operations. The two countries have until now largely spared Iran’s oil and gas sector and helped to keep a lid on the global oil price surge.

IRGC issues ‘firm and clear warning’ after energy infrastructure attack

A spokesperson for IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters promised that “the fuel, energy and gas infrastructures” of those who attacked Iran’s energy and oil facilities “will be burned and turned to ashes at the earliest opportunity”.

“This is a firm and clear warning to the criminals who attacked part of Iran’s fuel and energy infrastructures in the south of the country,” the statement carried by Iran’s Mehr news agency said.
“We declare to the cowardly and aggressive army of the criminal America and the barbaric and child-killing Zionist regime that you will have to throw your soldiers into the water and throw your dignity into the wind,” the statement added.

War will hit everyone no matter race, religion, Iran’s Foreign Minister

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, has cautioned that the global consequences of the current war will affect everyone.

The minister stated that all individuals, regardless of race, religion, or economic status, would be impacted by the conflict.

“(A) wave of global consequences has only commenced and will affect all – irrespective of wealth, religion, or race,” Abbas Araghchi wrote on X.

He referenced Joe Kent, Director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, resignation letter, where Kent said he could not “in good conscience” endorse the ongoing war in Iran, arguing that Iran posed no imminent threat to US.

Abbas Araghchi noted that a “growing number of voices – (including) European and US officials” declaring that the war against Iran was unjust.

“More members of the international community should take similar action,” his post added.

Badenoch slams Trump’s repeated criticisms of Starmer

Speaking shortly before Trump yet again singled out Starmer, Badenoch described Trump’s criticism of Starmer over his refusal to be drawn into the war as counterproductive.

Describing herself as Keir Starmer’s biggest critic, she said that the words coming from the White House were completely wrong. “I think it’s actually quite childish. There is a lot that can be said behind closed doors.(Ukraine’s) President Zelenskyy in our country today. The western alliance having an argument with itself, I think, sends the wrong signal to our opponents, in Iran or in Russia.

“We need to be strengthening between the UK and the US, irrespective of who is president and who is prime minister. But I think those words coming from the White House were childish.”

NATO allies in talks on best way to re-open Hormuz strait

Meanwhile, NATO chief, Mark Rutte, said that the military alliance’s members were discussing the best way to open the Strait of Hormuz, after the alliance’s initial rebuff of Trump’s demand for help to secure the Strait.

“I have been in contact with many allies. We all agree, of course, that strait has to open up again. And what I know is that allies are working together, discussing how to do that, what is the best way to do it,” Rutte told a news conference during a visit to a NATO exercise in northern Norway.

“They are working on that collectively, to find a way forward,” Rutte added.

US President Donald Trump has urged other global powers to send warships to escort convoys of tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.

Iran has effectively closed the strait since the United States and Israel began a war on the Islamic republic last month, sending global oil prices up by more than 40 percent.

NATO making foolish mistakes – Trump

Continuing his rebuke of the alliance yesterday, Trump said NATO is making a very foolish mistakably not sending aid.

“I’ve long said that I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us. So this was a great test,” he told reporters.

Asked if he would reconsider the US relationship with NATO as he has suggested in the past, Trump said it was “certainly something that we should think about” but added: “I have nothing currently in mind.”
Deadly strikes

As the war entered its 19th day, an Iranian missile barrage killed two people near Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv, according to medics, while authorities said falling munitions hit multiple sites in central Israel overnight.

Police said a cluster bomb hit a residential building in Ramat Gan, a city just outside Tel Aviv, and the roof collapsed on an elderly couple.

Iranian media meanwhile said Israel and the United States had launched fresh strikes across several areas of the country, including Tehran.

Tasnim news agency said “Seven people were killed and 56 were injured in an American-Zionist attack on residential areas in Dorud town” in Lorestan province.

In addition to the human toll of the war, with hundreds killed and millions displaced, the conflict has hit the global economy.

Oil prices surged again Wednesday after Israeli strikes hit Iranian facilities at a major gas field in the oil-rich Gulf, prompting Tehran to call for retaliatory attacks on energy infrastructure.

The conflict has led to the near total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which a fifth of global oil and LNG travels in peacetime.

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