Araghchi says ready and ‘waiting’ for US invasion; The attack in Tehran sparks the Bahrain refinery
Smoke rises over the city skyline in Riyadh amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran. Photo: Reuters
WASHINGTON:
Iran is “waiting for” and prepared to counter any ground invasion by the US military, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Thursday, as the Middle East war sparked by US-Israeli attacks on Iran has swelled outward to Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Azerbaijan and risks drawing more countries into the conflict.
Furthermore, a spokesman for Khatam al-Anbiya’s central headquarters said the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was hit by drones from the IRGC navy and fled the area at high speed along with its accompanying destroyers. The shipping company has so far moved more than 1,000 kilometers away from the region.
The foreign minister said his country had learned from past conflicts and now had a more capable fighting force that could take on US troops if they were to invade.
“When I said we are waiting for them, it did not mean we are waiting for (a) continuation of the war. No, but we have prepared to confront any scenario, with any eventuality, any possibility, and we know we can handle it,” he said.
“The conflict has evolved into a high-intensity, multi-domain campaign with no immediate end in sight,” the US-based Soufan Center said.
“The conflict has expanded beyond direct military exchanges and conventional attacks and into a regional conflict spanning leadership decapitation attacks, internal destabilization efforts, pressure on maritime choke points, attacks or threats against energy infrastructure, and economic coercion.”
In a dramatic development on Wednesday, a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka, killing at least 84 people on board.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the United States of committing “an atrocity at sea” and said Washington would “bitterly regret” setting that precedent.
Meanwhile, Iran has hit targets throughout the Middle East – but also outside.
An Iranian-produced drone hit a British military base in EU member Cyprus on Monday.
On Wednesday, NATO air defense systems intercepted a ballistic missile fired from Iran and heading towards Turkey.
It remains unclear whether the missile was deliberately aimed at Turkey, but Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned his Iranian counterpart that “any step that could lead to the spread of the conflict should be avoided”.
On Thursday, at least two drones crossing from Iran attacked Azerbaijan’s exclave of Nakhichevan, with Baku – an ally of Israel – vowing the incident “will not go unanswered”.
“Iran is striking out everywhere, targeting potential allies or potentially neutral countries,” a European military source told AFP.
“Perhaps the calculation is to adopt an indirect strategy to cripple the global economy and increase the cost of war for the United States.”
He said Iran did not ask for a ceasefire and saw no reason to negotiate with the United States.
“We negotiated with them twice and each time they attacked us in the middle of the negotiations. So there is no request for a ceasefire from us and there is no request for negotiations with the US from us,” he said.
Araghchi insisted the US had “failed” to achieve a quick victory and regime change in Iran, despite a US-Israeli strike that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week.
An Iranian missile attack on Thursday sparked a blaze at Bahrain’s main state-owned oil refinery as Iran pressed strikes across the Gulf for a sixth day.
Some Western embassy staff in Riyadh, meanwhile, were told to shelter in place, diplomatic sources said, after an attack on the US embassy earlier this week.
The war in the Middle East has engulfed the otherwise stable Gulf region as Iran retaliates against US and Israeli attacks that killed its top leader and launched attacks on Israel, the wider region and beyond.
At least 13 people have been killed in the Gulf, including seven civilians, since Iran began its attacks on Saturday. Washington said six US soldiers were killed, including four in Kuwait.
A fire broke out at Bahrain’s Bapco Energies refinery after the Iranian attack but was later contained, the kingdom’s communications center said.
There were no reported injuries from the strike at the Sitra island refinery and operations continued, the government’s media arm added.
Earlier, Britain said it was temporarily withdrawing some embassy staff and their relatives from Bahrain due to the security situation.
US President Donald Trump insisted on Thursday that he had influence over the choice of Iran’s next supreme leader, as the war sparked by the US-Israeli campaign that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reverberated throughout the Middle East and beyond.
Earlier, Israel issued an unprecedented evacuation warning for the entire southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Iran-backed Hezbollah, sending residents fleeing in panic from the district of hundreds of thousands of people.
This warning followed a new wave of Israeli attacks on Iran, which in turn lashed out at the Gulf nations.
The war has attracted global powers, snarling shipping and rattling energy markets. It has been felt as far away as the coast of Sri Lanka, where a US submarine torpedoed an Iranian warship, and Azerbaijan, which threatened retaliation after a drone struck an airport.
Trump on Thursday rejected the possibility of Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, replacing his slain father as supreme leader, dismissing the younger man as a “lightweight.”
“I have to be involved in the appointment, just like with Delcy,” Trump told Axios in an interview, drawing a comparison to Venezuela, where interim President Delcy Rodriguez has cooperated with him under threat of violence after the U.S. ousted her boss, Nicolas Maduro.
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone who will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump was quoted as saying, threatening more war in the future if a better alternative was not found.
The remarks suggest a willingness to work with someone from the Islamic Republic rather than overthrow the government entirely, despite Trump’s repeated calls for Iranians to rise up and take back their country.
Lebanon was drawn into the growing conflict on Monday when the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah attacked Israel to avenge the killing of Khamenei.
Israel responded with airstrikes and sent ground troops into some Lebanese border villages. It told residents of a large area of southern Lebanon to leave in anticipation of military operations there.
In a message Thursday to residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, an Israeli military spokesman said: “Save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately.”
Such warnings typically herald large-scale attacks, and massive traffic jams formed on the outskirts of the suburbs as people fired weapons into the air and urged locals to leave as soon as possible.
On a Beirut beach, hundreds of families, many of them scared and angry, floundered after hastily fleeing with nowhere else to go.
“We fled the suburbs, we were humiliated,” one man told AFP, declining to give his name.
“We sleep on the road tonight and God alone knows what will happen to us.”
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun asked his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron to intercede with Israel to prevent the bombing of southern Beirut.
“At this moment of great danger, I call on the Israeli prime minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) not to extend the war to Lebanon,” Macron said after the conversation.
Earlier in the day, Israel said its forces had hit “several command centers belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization” in southern Beirut.
Pakistan also expressed serious concern over attacks on Turkey and Azerbaijan.
“Pakistan expresses grave concern over the recent attacks targeting the brotherly countries of Turkey and Azerbaijan. These attacks are in clear violation of international law and the principles of intergovernmental relations and may push the region towards further escalation,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
While reaffirming Pakistan’s strong solidarity with Turkey and Azerbaijan, we call for restraint and the use of dialogue and diplomacy to maintain regional peace and stability, it added.
