Xavier Radio Ug News 24 7
The expanding war in Iran entered its second week on Saturday amid renewed uncertainty about how or when hostilities will end, as US President Donald Trump declared he would only accept Tehran’s “unconditional surrender” and Israel traded fresh attacks with Iran and Lebanon.
Trump’s comments on social media on Friday came hours after Iran’s president announced that unnamed countries had begun mediation efforts, briefly raising the possibility, however faint, of a diplomatic resolution a week after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran.
“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” Trump wrote.
“After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”
Trump has offered shifting explanations of his war aims, raising the possibility of an extended regional conflict that has already spilt well beyond Iran’s borders, shaken global financial markets and sent oil prices soaring.
In response to the attack, Iran has targeted Israel as well as multiple Gulf states that host US military installations.
Inside Israel on Friday, explosions could be heard as Israeli defences activated to shoot down incoming Iranian fire. The UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia all reported fresh drone and missile attacks.
Meanwhile, Israel pursued a major expansion of the war in Lebanon, pounding the capital, Beirut, on Friday after ordering an unprecedented evacuation of the city’s entire southern suburbs.
Israel also launched a new wave of attacks on Iran, saying 50 of its warplanes had hit a bunker still being used by Iran’s leadership beneath slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s destroyed Tehran compound.
Early on Saturday, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Mehrabad Airport in Tehran had been struck.
There was no immediate comment from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard or Hezbollah.
Israel has extended its bombing to Lebanon to root out Hezbollah, the Shi’ite militia allied to Iran that has been a dominant faction in Lebanese politics since the 1980s. Hezbollah fired on Israel this week to avenge the death of Khamenei.
“We’re sleeping here in the streets – some in cars, some on the street, some on the beach,” said Jamal Seifeddin, 43, who fled Beirut’s southern suburbs and spent the night on the streets in the downtown district.About 300,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon in the past four days, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.
The Israeli military says it has destroyed 80% of Iran’s air-defence systems in the first week of the campaign and disabled more than 60% of its missile launchers.
Trump’s demand for Iran’s surrender, and the likelihood that it would complicate any quick path to ending the conflict, sent European and U.S. stock indexes tumbling on Friday. Oil prices hit their highest prices in years, with the critical shipping lane of the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed down.
Trump told Reuters in a telephone interview on Thursday that he must have a say in selecting Iran’s new supreme leader to replace Khamenei, killed on the war’s first day, a demand he repeated on Friday in a remarkable assertion of power over the country of more than 90 million people.
Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, told reporters that new leadership would be chosen “in accordance with our constitutional procedures and solely by the will of the Iranian people – without any foreign interference.”
Israel has said openly that it aims to overthrow Iran’s ruling system. It has been bombing parts of western Iran to support Iranian Kurdish militias who hope to exploit the war to seize towns near the frontier, according to three sources familiar with Israel’s talks with the factions.
Iran has cast the war as an unprovoked attack and describes the killing of Khamenei as an assassination.
www.sabcnews.com, https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/iran-war-enters-second-week-as-trump-demands-unconditional-surrender/
