Explosions sounded in Tehran on Wednesday (March 4) as Iran’s war with the US and Israel entered a fifth day following earlier strikes on an Iranian nuclear site and retaliatory strikes by the Islamic Republic across the Gulf region. The explosions around Tehran came at dawn, according to Iran’s state television, while Israel’s military said its air defences had been activated to intercept incoming Iranian missiles, and explosions were heard around Jerusalem.
Five days into a war that US President Donald Trump suggested could last a month or longer, nearly 800 people have been killed in Iran, including some Trump said he had considered as possible future leaders of the country.
Explosions also hit Lebanon, where Israel said it is retaliating against Hezbollah militants. Lebanon’s state-run media National News Agency reported that at least five people were killed, fifteen others were wounded, and three were missing in an Israeli strike that hit a residential complex in the city of Baalbeck.
Strikes hit Lebanon overnight, including in several towns and at a hotel in a suburb right next to the capital. Beirut woke up to the sounds of drones whizzing overhead. The Israeli military warned residents in a southern suburb to flee ahead of a morning airstrike, as more displaced people fleeing the conflict pour into the capital seeking shelter.
Overnight Israeli strikes on towns near Beirut have killed at least six people, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said early Wednesday. Israel struck the towns of Aramoun and Saadiyat just south of Beirut’s international airport, killing six and wounding eight others. It also struck a hotel in the Beirut suburb of Hazmieh. No casualties were immediately reported there. The strikes came without warning, and the Israeli military did not immediately disclose the targets.
The Israeli military said Wednesday it conducted a series of strikes across Iran’s capital targeting its security forces. It said it hit buildings associated with the Basij, the all-volunteer force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that conducted the bloody crackdown on protesters in January that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands detained in the country.
The Israeli military also said it hit buildings associated with Iran’s internal security command, which has also suppressed demonstrations in the past. Israel and the US have said they want to see the Iranian public overthrow its theocracy. Strikes against counterprotest forces likely are part of that effort.
An Iranian-backed militant group in Iraq said it fired drones toward Jordan. The group, Saraya Awliya al-Dam, said that drones were aimed at “a vital target” in the kingdom. Earlier Wednesday, Jordan’s state-run television reported that sirens sounded across the country. Iraqi militants on Tuesday threatened to target Jordan over allegations that US aircraft that bombed their facilities took off from a Jordanian air base.
A building associated with the clerical panel that will pick Iran’s next supreme leader came under attack in an airstrike in the holy seminary city of Qom, semiofficial media reported. The attack on Tuesday hit the building in the Resalat neighbourhood of Qom. The semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, linked the building to Iran’s Assembly of Experts and said there was no meeting ongoing there at the time of the attack. Fars further went on to say the assembly is meeting remotely, without elaborating. There was no report on whether anyone was hurt in the strike.
Israel’s public broadcaster CAN said Israel carried out the attack, though there’s been no confirmation from its military.
The Assembly of Experts is an 88-member panel which “must, as soon as possible”, pick a new supreme leader under Iranian law. The panel consists entirely of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog. (AP)
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