Trump threatens Iran following new wave of attacks on Gulf states and Israel

Audio By Carbonatix

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran launched multiple attacks early Friday on Gulf Arab states, including dozens of drones at Saudi Arabia, following warnings from its new supreme leader about hosting American bases, and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened major new retaliation.

“Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today," Trump wrote in a social media post. “Iran’s Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth.”

The comments came the day after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei vowed to “not refrain from avenging the blood” of Iranians killed, and warned Gulf Arab nations to shut U.S. bases, saying the notion of American protection was “nothing more than a lie.”

Intense airstrikes landed around Iran’s capital, Tehran early Friday, just before rallies were to begin for the annual Quds Day event in support of the Palestinians. Israel said its air force had hit more than 200 targets in Iran over the past 24 hours, including missile launchers, defense systems and weapons production sites.

With growing global concerns about a possible energy crisis and no end to the war in sight, the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, remained stubbornly over $100 per barrel as Iran kept its stranglehold on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world's oil transits on its way from the Persian Gulf to the open seas.

Brent prices have spiked as high as about $120 per barrel and are currently some 40% higher than when Israel and the United States attacked Iran on Feb. 28 to start the war.

Iran has been attacking ships that try to transit the strait, and Khamenei's comments — his first to the public since being named to replace his father, who was killed during the first day of the conflict — said Iran would continue to block the waterway.

In Iraq, recovery efforts were underway after an American KC-135 refueling plane went down, according to U.S. Central Command. And a French soldier who was stationed in the north of the country was killed in an attack, the French president said Friday.

Iran has been attacking oil and other infrastructur e around the Gulf region, and on Friday Saudi Arabia that it had downed nearly 50 drones sent in multiple waves throughout the early morning hours.

In Oman, two people were killed when two drones crashed in an industrial area in the region of Sohar, the Oman News Agency reported.

Sirens also sounded in Bahrain warning of incoming fire, and in Dubai black smoke billowed from an industrial area after a blaze authorities said was sparked by debris from an interception.

A building at the Dubai International Financial Center also sustained damage when hit with debris from what authorities described as a “successful interception.”

The DIFC is an economic free zone for banks, capital traders and wealth managers, home to exclusive restaurants and nightclubs for the city-state’s elite. Iran said earlier this week that it would target banks and financial institutions after an airstrike hit a bank in Tehran.

Nearly 60 people were wounded in northern Israel after Hezbollah said it had fired several rocket salvoes toward the area and at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. Almost all the injuries were described as very minor.

One person was killed in southwestern Beirut in an Israeli strike, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, and another attack hit an apartment in the capital, leaving it engulfed in flames. Following the attacks, the Israeli army said it had been targeting a member of Iran-linked Hezbollah.

In eastern Lebanon, a strike on an apartment wounded a local official with the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and killed his two sons, the state-run National News Agency reported. Israel for the past two years has targeted officials with the group, known as al-Jamaa al-Islamiya or the Islamic Group.

More than 600 people have been killed in Lebanon since the fighting began, the Health Ministry has reported. and nearly 800,000 have been internally displaced, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

Iranian authorities say more than 1,300 people have been killed there, and Israel has reported 12 deaths. The U.S. has lost at least seven soldiers while another eight have suffered severe injuries.

In his Friday morning post, Trump said that "we are totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise."

“They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them,” Trump said. “What a great honor it is to do so!”

The U.S. military said American forces have now struck more than 6,000 targets since the operation against Iran began, including more than 30 minelaying vessels.

On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said a French soldier was killed in an attack targeting Irbil in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region. France earlier said six soldiers had been hurt in a drone strike in Irbil, where French troops are deployed as part of a multinational counterterrorism mission supporting Iraqi forces in their fight against Islamic State militants.

In the same region, British officials said several U.S. personnel suffered minor injuries Wednesday when drone strikes hit a base in Irbil that houses both British and American troops.

Italy said that a base where it has troops in Irbil was also hit Wednesday but that there were no injuries. The Italian contingent in the region trains local Kurdish troops at the request of the Iraqi government

Recovery efforts were underway in western Iraq on Friday after the American KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties, but the aircraft had five crew on board.

U.S. Central Command said the crash was not related to friendly or hostile fire, and that two aircraft were involved, including one that landed safely.

The KC-135 is the fourth publicly acknowledged aircraft to crash as part of the U.S. military’s operations against Iran. Last week, three American fighter jets were mistakenly downed by friendly Kuwaiti fire.

___

Rising reported from Bangkok and Abou AlJoud from Beirut, Lebanon. Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Sam Mednik in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this story.