Iran faced a fresh blitz of US and Israeli strikes on Monday after its Assembly of Experts, the top clerical body, appointed its first new supreme leader in 37 years.
- Khamenei son takes charge
- Iran targets Gulf energy installations while oil prices surge
- Israel strikes Hezbollah-linked financial firm after warning
- US urges citizens to leave southeast Turkey
- China says opposes any targeting of new Iran leader
- Zelensky says 11 countries asked Ukraine for drone help against Iran
The Iran war sent oil prices spiralling above $100 a barrel after Tehran under new leader Mojtaba Khamanei fired a new barrage of missiles at Israel and its crude-exporting Gulf neighbours.
On the first day in power for Khamanei, the 56-year-old son of slain leader Ali Khamenei, Iran renewed its missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, Bahrein, Qatar, the UAE and Israel.
Another missile was fired at NATO member Turkey, the second such incident in five days, with the alliance’s air defences intercepting it before it could hit its target.
With the key shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz off Iran remaining closed to almost all oil tankers, the price of benchmark crude oil contracts spiralled 10 per cent to their highest levels since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
EU economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis warned that a ‘more protracted’ war would lead to a ‘stagflationary shock’ of high inflation and low growth for the world economy.
Stocks markets around the world are also diving, hitting pension funds and savings, while inflation caused by higher oil prices will push up the price of goods for consumers everywhere.
Queues at petrol stations have been seen as far afield as Vietnam and France as drivers anticipate higher prices, raising the risk of shortages.
‘I think we are all seeing right now the threat this clerical regime poses to the region and to the world,’ US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Monday.
‘They are trying to hold the world hostage.’
Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani told Khamenei that his appointment had ‘caused the hostile and warmongering enemies to despair.’
US president Donald Trump told the New York Post he was ‘not happy’ about the appointment on Monday after telling ABC News on Sunday that ‘if he doesn’t get approval from us he’s not going to last long.’
After similar threats from Israel, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman warned that Beijing opposes targeting leaders and insists ‘Iran’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity should be respected.’
Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, said the new supreme leader was a hardliner who had ‘been involved in all the most violent repressions that have taken place over the last 15-16 years.’
He said it was possible but very unlikely that he might attempt to make a deal with the Americans and Israelis to end the war, or even take a more modernising approach within Iran.
Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday pledged ‘unwavering support’ to Khamenei amid unconfirmed US media reports that Moscow has been providing targeting intelligence to the Islamic Republic’s military.
Crowds rally to pledge allegiance to Iran’s new leader as US, Israel war rages.
Under a banner bearing the portrait of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the words ‘your path will continue’, crowds gathered in Tehran to pledge allegiance to his son and successor.
‘Death to America, Death to Israel,’ and ‘God is Great,’ chanted the defiant crowds that gathered in Tehran’s emblematic Enghelab Square on Monday, flanked by a heavy security presence with armoured vehicles and personnel stationed on the rooftops of surrounding buildings.
Iran launched fresh strikes on energy installations in the Gulf on Monday, including a petroleum complex in Bahrain, as oil prices soared on fears over supply disruptions due to the Middle East war.
Oil traders, policymakers and central bankers are all watching the Middle East for news about Gulf energy infrastructure which is crucial for the world economy.
Larijani said that security within the strategic Strait of Hormuz could not be guaranteed for as long as the war continues.
French president Emmanuel Macron said that his country and allies were working to put together a ‘purely defensive’ mission to reopen the strait through which nearly 20 per cent of the world’s crude oil usually transits.
He said the mission would be aimed at escorting vessels ‘after the end of the hottest phase of the conflict’, but experts say it would also mean putting navy vessels at risk of incoming fire from the nearby Iranian coast.
Following strikes on Bahrain’s Al Ma’ameer oil facility that ignited a fire, the country’s state-owned energy company Bapco joined its counterparts in Qatar and Kuwait in declaring ‘force majeure’ — a warning that events beyond its control may lead it to miss export targets.
The Saudi defence ministry said Monday it had thwarted a drone attack targeting an oil field in the kingdom’s east, near the Emirati border.
As governments around the region seek to protect their image as safe havens, Qatari authorities said they have arrested more than 300 people for sharing images online and what they described as ‘misleading information’.
The announcement followed similar but smaller scale arrests and warnings issued in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The Emirati military deaths bring to 23 the number of people killed in the Gulf since Iran began its attacks, including 10 civilians and seven US service members.
At least one Israeli was killed on Monday, a man said be approximately 40, when shrapnel showered a building site, emergency services said.
At least 10 explosions were audible in Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial hub, after the military announced it had detected missiles inbound from Iran.
The multi-front war also intensified in Lebanon.
Iran-backed militants Hezbollah said they were engaging Israeli forces who landed in eastern Lebanon on 15 helicopters across the Syrian border, and more strikes hit the southern districts of Beirut.
Large plumes of smoke rose from the area after the Israeli military warned it would destroy branches of Al-Qard al-Hassan, a Hezbollah-linked financial firm.
Lebanon was drawn into the conflict last week when Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of the elder Khamenei.
The State Department said in a travel advisory it had ‘ordered non-emergency US government employees and US government employee family members to leave Saudi Arabia due to safety risks’.
Washington has advised non-essential staff to leave its consulate near the southern Turkish city of Adana near a key NATO base and ordered US citizens to leave ‘southeast Turkey’, the US embassy to Ankara said Monday.
An airstrike hit a base belonging to the Hashed al-Shaabi coalition in northern Iraq, according to officials from the former paramilitary alliance, which includes pro-Iran factions.
One of the officials blamed the strike on the United States, saying it hit a base in the Bartella area near the city of Mosul in Nineveh province. No casualties were reported.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that 11 countries had tapped Kyiv for help in how to counter Iranian drones, being launched by Tehran across the Middle East as retaliation for US-Israeli strikes.
Ukraine touts itself as having world-class drone defence capabilities, built up through fending off nightly barrages of Iran-style attack drones launched by Russia, an ally of Tehran.
‘As of now, there are 11 requests from countries neighbouring Iran, European states, and the US. There is clear interest in Ukraine’s experience in protecting lives, relevant interceptors, electronic warfare systems, and training,’ Zelensky said.
China’s envoy to the Middle East urged de-escalation in the conflict-ridden region and called for attacks on civilians to be condemned during talks with Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Beijing said Monday.
