DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran threatened recreational and tourist sites worldwide, insisted it was still building missiles and its supreme leader issued another defiant statement on Friday. The United States was deploying more warships and another 2,500 Marines three weeks into the war it launched alongside Israel.
Iran fired on Israel and energy sites in neighboring Gulf Arab states as many in the region marked one of the holiest days on the Muslim calendar. Iranians were also celebrating the Persian New Year, known as Nowruz, a normally festive holiday that is more subdued this year.
With little information coming out of Iran, it was not clear how much damage its arms, nuclear or energy facilities have sustained in the punishing U.S. and Israeli strikes that began Feb. 28 — or even who was truly in charge of the country. But Iran's attacks are still choking off oil supplies and denting the global economy, raising food and fuel prices far beyond the Middle East.
The U.S. and Israel have offered shifting rationales for the war, from hoping to foment an uprising that topples Iran’s leadership to eliminating its nuclear and missile programs. There have been no public signs of any such uprising and no end in sight to the war.
Khamenei defiant as Iran's military threatens tourist sites
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei praised Iranians’ steadfastness in the face of war in a written statement read on Iranian television to mark the Persian New Year, Nowruz.
Khamenei said the U.S. and Israeli attacks were based on an illusion that killing Iran's top leaders could cause the overthrow of the government. He commended Iranians for “building a nationwide defensive front” and “delivering such a bewildering blow that the enemy fell into contradictions and irrational statements.”
Khamenei has not been seen in public since he became supreme leader following the assassination of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Israeli strikes at the start of the war. U.S. and Israeli officials suspect the younger Khamenei was wounded.
Iran’s top military spokesman, Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, warned Friday that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide won’t be safe for Tehran’s enemies. The threat renewed concerns that Iran may revert to using militant attacks beyond the Middle East as a pressure tactic.
U.S. bolstering its firepower in the Mideast
The U.S. is deploying three more warships and roughly 2,500 additional Marines to the Middle East, a U.S. official told The Associated Press. Two other U.S. officials confirmed that ships were deploying, without saying where they were headed. All three spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.
A White House official said President Donald Trump has said he has “no plans” to send troops into Iran, but retains all options. The official wasn't authorized to speak to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
U.S. and Israeli leaders say weeks of strikes have decimated Iran’s military. In addition to Iran's supreme leader, airstrikes have also killed the head of its Supreme National Security Council and a raft of other top-ranking military and political leaders.
Gen. Ali Mohammad Naeini, a spokesman for Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, was quoted by a state-run newspaper Friday saying Iran continues to manufacture missiles despite Israel's claim that it had destroyed Iran's production capabilities.
Iranian state television later said that Naeini was killed in an airstrike.
NATO pulls mission from Iraq after attacks
NATO’s top commander, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, confirmed Friday that the alliance has pulled several hundred personnel out of Iraq and relocated them to Europe. They were part of NATO's security advisory mission established in 2018 to advise Iraqi defense and security officials.
The move came after a string of Iranian attacks on other troops at British, French and Italian bases in the country.
Iran has stepped up its attacks on energy sites in Gulf Arab states after Israel bombed Iran’s massive South Pars offshore natural gas field earlier in the week.
Two waves of Iranian drones attacked a Kuwaiti oil refinery early Friday, sparking a fire. The Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, which can process some 730,000 barrels of oil per day, is one of the largest in the Middle East.
Bahrain said a fire broke out after shrapnel from an intercepted projectile landed on a warehouse, and Saudi Arabia reported shooting down multiple drones targeting its oil-rich Eastern Province.
Iran’s attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf combined with its stranglehold on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and other critical goods are transported, has raised concerns of a global energy crisis.
Brent crude oil, the international standard, has soared during the fighting and was around $108 per barrel Friday, up from roughly $70 per barrel before the war began.
Mideast marks the end of Ramadan, Persian New Year
Heavy explosions shook Dubai as air defenses intercepted incoming fire over the city, where many were observing Eid al-Fitr, the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
In Iran, meanwhile, many were marking Nowruz, the Persian New Year, as Israel said it had launched new strikes and explosions were heard over Tehran.
Loud explosions could also be heard in Jerusalem after the Israeli army warned of incoming Iranian missiles. The Israeli military said missile fragments struck the edge of Jerusalem’s Old City, home to sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims
More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran during the war. Israeli strikes targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon have displaced more than 1 million people, according to the Lebanese government, which says more than 1,000 people have been killed. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missiles and four others have died in the occupied West Bank. At least 13 U.S. military members have been killed.
On Friday, Israel broadened its attacks to Syria, saying it hit infrastructure there in response to what it described as attacks on the Druze minority. Syria’s foreign ministry said Israel had acted under “flimsy pretexts and fabricated excuses.”
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This story has been updated to correct the headline to show the war is nearly three weeks in, not four.
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Mednick reported from Jerusalem and Rising from Bangkok. AP journalists Konstantin Toropin and Michelle Price in Washington; Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Lorne Cook in Brussels and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed.
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