The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran spread across the Middle East and beyond on Monday with Lebanon’s Hezbollah entering the fray and a British air base in Cyprus targeted.
The Israeli military said it began a new “broad strike” on Tehran, as AFP reporters in the Iranian capital heard explosions ring out on the third day of the US-Israeli joint assault. Gulf monarchies threatened to retaliate as a Saudi oil refinery burned, Qatar halted LNG production, tankers were attacked off Oman and energy prices soared.
Meanwhile, black smoke rose from the US embassy complex in Kuwait as Iran pressed on with attacks it launched in retaliation for the US and Israeli campaign that killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Greek frigates An Iranian drone hit the runway of a UK air force base in Akrotiri in Cyprus, whose government announced that the airport in its town of Paphos and the area around the British facility would be evacuated.
A Cypriot government spokesman said two more drones targeting the base were “dealt with in a timely manner” and Greece announced it was deploying frigates and jets to help protect Cyprus, a fellow EU member. Israel and the US have been striking targets across Iran since Saturday. The war that began with Khamenei’s killing has engulfed the region, with explosions ringing out in Dubai, Bahrain, Iraq and elsewhere.
Flights through the region’s hub airports have been cancelled, disrupting international travel for many thousands of people. In Lebanon, the strikes have triggered a new round of violence between Israel and Hezbollah, with the Iran-backed group firing rockets and its enemy responding with bombing. Israeli’s Defence Minister Israel Katz predicted that Hezbollah’s leader would perish, as the army issued a warning for Lebanese civilians to evacuate areas of south Beirut.
“We will strike Hezbollah hard, and Naim Qassem, chairman of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, will discover that whoever follows Khamenei’s path ends up like Khamenei — at the bottom of hell,” he said.
As Lebanon, which had vowed to disarm Hezbollah, was dragged into the war, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam announced “the immediate ban of all Hezbollah security and military activities and considering them illegal”.
Explosions rocked Beirut while, in southern Lebanon residents fled, according to AFP journalists, after the Israeli military announced it was striking several parts of the country. In the southern city of Sidon, cars of families fled on packed roads with mattresses tied to their roofs.
AFP
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