Across Iran’s capital, Tehran, explosions rang out overnight as the U.S. and Israel pounded Iran with airstrikes. Fox News reports Israel hit a building where Iranian officials were meeting to pick a new Supreme Leader in the wake of the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the first strikes on Saturday.
Iran hits the US Embassy in Riyadh and Washington pulls out staff
An attack from two drones on the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh caused a “limited fire,” according to Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry, and the embassy urged Americans to avoid the compound. It followed an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait. U.S. Embassies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon said they were closed to the public.
The U.S. State Department ordered the evacuation of non-emergency personnel and family in Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. In addition, the U.S. has urged citizens to leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries, though with much of the airspace closed many remained stranded. Several other countries arranged evacuation flights for their citizens.
Iran has hit many countries deemed safe havens in the Mideast in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli strikes. Recent targets included two Amazon data centers in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain. The centers in the UAE were hit, while a drone struck near the one Bahrain, causing damage, the company said.
Iran has also struck energy facilities in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and attacked several ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded passes, sending global oil and natural gas prices soaring.
“The Strait of Hormuz is closed,” declared Iranian Brig. Gen. Ebrahim Jabbari, an adviser to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, vowing that any ships that passed through it would be set on fire.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari vowed that Iranian attacks on the gas-rich country “will not go unanswered.”
Israel sends troops into Lebanon
The conflict has spread to Lebanon, where Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel on Monday, prompting Israel to retaliate.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military hit Beirut with more airstrikes and said it had moved additional troops into southern Lebanon and taken new positions on several strategic points close to the border.
The U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon later said its peacekeepers saw Israeli troops going into and then out of Lebanon. But Israel’s army said its troops are still operating in Lebanon.
