Dare Babalola
In retaliation of for a massive attack that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran launched a new wave of missile and drone strikes on Sunday, targeting US military bases in the region and Israel.
According to Iranian state TV, twenty-seven US bases in the region, as well as Israel’s military headquarters and a defence industries complex in Tel Aviv, were among the targets.
“A few minutes ago, pilots of the air forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran successfully bombed US bases in the countries of the Persian Gulf and in the Kurdistan region of Iraq over several phases of operations,” Iran’s army said in a statement carried by state TV.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader since 1989 and sworn enemy of the West, was killed in the opening salvo of a massive US and Israeli attack, sparking a new wave of retaliatory missile strikes from Tehran on Sunday.
Iranian state television confirmed Khamenei’s death early Sunday, hours after President Donald Trump announced the killing of the 86-year-old cleric he described as “one of the most evil people in History”.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards vowed to launch the “most ferocious” operation in history against Israel and US bases, which are located in Gulf countries that were already counting the cost of an unprecedented series of deadly Iranian strikes.
Iran’s state broadcaster said 27 US bases in the region, as well as Israel’s military headquarters and a defence industries complex in Tel Aviv, were among the targets in a new wave of strikes.
Trump threatened that any retaliation from Tehran would lead to Iran being hit with a force that has “never been seen before”.
He had earlier vowed no let-up in the strikes until the fall of the Islamic republic and urged security forces to stand down.
“This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country,” Trump said in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also told Iranians that “this is your time to join forces, to overthrow the regime and to secure your future.”
In Tehran, cheers could be heard on Tehran’s streets after reports first emerged from Israel of the death of Khamenei, as plumes of black smoke hovered over the district where he usually resides, witnesses told AFP.
Later in Tehran’s Enghlab square, thousands of mourners, dressed mostly in black and waving Iran’s flag, chanted “death to America”, according to AFP journalists.
