- Iranian officials warn of ‘war of attrition’, global economic chaos as energy supplies slow down
Iran dramatically escalated its strategy of striking civilian infrastructure and transport networks across the Gulf on Wednesday, attacking commercial ships and targeting Dubai’s international airport as US and Israeli warplanes launched new waves of strikes on the Islamic Republic.
Senior Iranian officials struck a defiant tone, warning of a long “war of attrition” that would threaten global economic chaos as energy supplies from the region were throttled.
In what appears to be a growing stalemate in the 13-day conflict, violence continued across a swath of the Middle East, with Israeli strikes on what it says are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and barrages of Iranian missiles and Hezbollah rockets targeting Israel.
This is as reports indicated that Israeli strikes on Lebanon have killed at least 634 people and injured 1,586 in less than 10 days of fighting. More than 816,700 families have registered as displaced with the Lebanese state.
in a sharp escalation on Wednesday night, Israeli warplanes bombarded Beirut’s southern suburbs and south Lebanon after Hezbollah launched drones and rockets at northern Israel. The rockets were launched in tandem with Iranian missiles, the first time the two have coordinated their attacks against Israel since the Iran war started.
In the Gulf, Kuwait said its air defences had downed eight Iranian drones, and Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted five heading toward its Shaybah oil field.
In Tehran and other Iranian cities, huge crowds took to the streets for the funerals of senior Iranian commanders killed in US and Israeli airstrikes since the beginning of the war. Mourners carried caskets and brandished flags and portraits of the late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the first minute of the US-Israeli offensive, and his son and successor, Mojtaba.
Also, Iranian officials admitted for the first time on Wednesday that Iran’s new leader had been wounded in the airstrikes that killed his father, mother, wife and a son. The 56-year-old has not appeared in public or issued any direct message since the war began.
“I have heard that he was injured in his legs and hand and arm … I think he is in the hospital because he is injured,” Tehran’s ambassador to Cyprus, Alireza Salarian, told the Guardian.
Despite growing pressure for the US and Israel to consider reining back their joint offensive, decision-makers in both countries appeared to continuing the campaign for now. Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, said on Wednesday that it would continue “without any time limit, as long as required, until we achieve all objectives and win the campaign”.
Donald Trump has sent more mixed messages in recent days, going from calling the war a “short-term excursion” that could end soon to proclaiming “we haven’t won enough” in the same speech in Washington on Monday.
On Wednesday, the US President told a rally in Hebron, Kentucky that “we won” but the US would stay in the fight to finish the job, adding: “You never like to say too early you won. We won. In the first hour it was over.”
He claimed that the US had destroyed 58 Iranian naval ships but indicated they would continue to fight. “We don’t want to leave early do we?” he added. “We got to finish the job … We don’t want to go back every two years.” – With The Guardian reports
