Araghchi says ready and ‘waiting’ for US invasion; Tehran strike sparks Bahrain refinery blaze
Smoke rises above the city skyline in Riyadh, amid the US-Israeli 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 Thursday, as the Middle East war unleashed by US-Israeli attacks on Iran has swelled outwards to Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Azerbaijan, and risks drawing more countries into the conflict.
Moreover, a spokesperson for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was struck by drones from the IRGC Navy and, along with its accompanying destroyers, fled the area at high speed. The carrier has so far moved more than 1,000 kilometres away from the region.
The foreign minister said his country had learned from previous conflicts and now had a more capable fighting force that could take on American troops, should they invade.
“When I said we are waiting for them, it didn’t mean that we are waiting for (a) continuation of the war. No, but we have prepared ourselves to confront with any scenario, with any eventuality, any possibility, and we know that we can handle that,” 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 strikes and into a regional conflict spanning leadership decapitation strikes, internal destabilisation efforts, pressure on maritime chokepoints, attacks or threats to 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.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the United States of perpetrating “an atrocity at sea”, and said Washington would “bitterly regret” having set that precedent.
Iran, meanwhile, has hit targets across the Middle East — but also beyond.
An Iranian-made drone on Monday struck a British military base in EU member Cyprus.
On Wednesday, NATO air defence systems intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Iran and heading towards Turkey.
It remains unclear whether the missile deliberately targeted Turkey, but Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned his Iranian counterpart that “any steps that could lead to the spread of conflict should be avoided”.
On Thursday, at least two drones that crossed 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 paralyse the global economy and raise the cost of war for the United States.”
He said Iran was not asking for a ceasefire and did not see any reason to negotiate with the US.
“We negotiated with them twice and every time they attacked us in the middle of negotiations. So there is no request for a ceasefire by us, and there is no request for the negotiation with the US, from us,” he said.
Araghchi insisted that the US had “failed” to achieve a rapid victory and regime change in Iran, despite a US-Israeli strike killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week.
An Iranian missile strike Thursday sparked a blaze at Bahrain’s main state-owned oil refinery as Iran pressed attacks across the Gulf for the sixth day.
Some Western embassy staff in Riyadh were meanwhile told to shelter in place, diplomatic sources said, following an attack on the US embassy compound earlier this week.
The war in the Middle East has engulfed the otherwise stable Gulf region as Iran retaliates against US and Israeli strikes that killed its supreme leader, launching 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 strikes on Saturday. Washington said six US servicemen were killed, including four in Kuwait.
A fire broke out at Bahrain’s Bapco Energies refinery following the Iranian attack but was later contained, the kingdom’s communications centre said.
There were no reported injuries from the strike at the refinery on the island of Sitra and operations continued, the government media arm added.
Earlier, Britain said it was temporarily withdrawing some embassy staff and their dependants from Bahrain due to the security situation.
US President Donald Trump insisted on Thursday that he have a say in picking Iran’s next supreme leader, as the war triggered 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 entirety of Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of Iran-backed Hezbollah, sending residents fleeing in a panic from the district of hundreds of thousands of people.
That warning followed a fresh wave of Israeli attacks on Iran, which again lashed out at Gulf nations.
The war has drawn in global powers, snarling shipping and rattling energy markets. It has been felt as far away as the Sri Lankan coast, where a US submarine torpedoed an Iranian warship, and Azerbaijan, which threatened retaliation after a drone hit 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, 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 United States ousted her boss, Nicolas Maduro.
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump was quoted saying, threatening more war in the future if a better alternative was not found.
The remarks suggest a willingness to work with someone from within the Islamic republic rather than toppling the government entirely, despite Trump’s repeated exhortations for Iranians to rise up and take back their country.
Lebanon was dragged into the widening conflict on Monday, when the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah attacked Israel to avenge the killing of Khamenei.
Israel responded with air strikes and sent ground troops into some Lebanese border villages. It told residents of a large area of south Lebanon to leave in anticipation of military operations there.
In a message on Thursday to the residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, an Israeli military spokesman said: “Save your lives and evacuate your residences immediately.”
Such warnings typically foreshadow large-scale attacks, and massive traffic jams formed on the outskirts of the suburbs, as people fired guns in the air, urging locals to leave as soon as possible.
On a Beirut beach, hundreds of families, many of them scared and angry, milled around after fleeing in haste, having nowhere else to go.
“We fled from the suburbs, we were humiliated,” one man told AFP, refusing to give his name.
“We’ll 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 south Beirut.
“At this moment of great danger, I call on the Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) not to expand the war to Lebanon,” Macron said after the conversation.
Earlier in the day, Israel said its forces had hit “several command centres belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation” in south Beirut.
Pakistan also expressed serious concern over attacks on Türkiye and Azerbaijan.
“Pakistan expresses serious concern over the recent attacks targeting the brotherly countries, Türkiye and Azerbaijan. These attacks are in clear violation of international law and the principles of inter-state relations and could push the region toward further escalation, the Foreign Office said in a statement.
While reaffirming Pakistan’s strong solidarity with Türkiye and Azerbaijan, we call for restraint and the use of dialogue and diplomacy to maintain regional peace and stability, it added.
