While raining bombs, Trump wants to pick new Iran leader
• Iran says Israel, US deliberately targeting civilian areas
• 1,230 killed by bombing so far; hospitals, schools targeted, football stadium destroyed
• Iran claims hitting US aircraft carrier, oil tanker; targets Erbil base
• US rejects IRGC claim of shooting down F-15E
• Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, Ramat David Airbase hit by missiles
• Hormuz, Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf designated ‘warlike operations area’; UN agency says 20,000 seafarers, 15,000 passengers stuck in these waters
BEIRUT: 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 assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reverberated throughout the Middle East and beyond.
Trump on Thursday rejected the possibility of Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, replacing his slain father as supreme leader, dismissing him 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.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi directly addressed US President Donald Trump in his latest statement, saying that it’s plan to subjugate Iran had failed.
“Plan A for a clean rapid military victory failed, Mr President,” Iran’s top diplomat wrote on social media platform X. “Your Plan B will be [an] even bigger failure.”
He concluded by saying the chance for a “unique deal” was “burned” during the latest round of negotiations.
“‘Israel First’ always means ‘America Last’,” the minister added.
US, Israeli campaign
Reeling from an intense bombing campaign that has rocked large parts of the country, Iran said that Israel and the US were deliberately targeting civilian areas.
“Our people are being brutally slaughtered as the aggressors deliberately target civilian areas and any location they believe will inflict the maximum possible suffering and loss of life,” said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei in a post on X.
Iran’s state-run Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs has said that the death toll from US and Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic has risen to 1,230.
“The number of martyrs from the aggressive military attack carried out by criminal America and the usurping Israeli regime against the Islamic homeland had reached 1,230 as of March 5,” the foundation said, according to Iran’s official IRNA news agency.
Powerful explosions rocked Tehran through the night and into Thursday. Iranian media also reported explosions in several other cities, including the southern port of Bandar Abbas on the Gulf and Tabriz in the northwest.
Meanwhile, a sports complex, football stadium, municipality building and shop fronts across Tehran were damaged in Israeli and US strikes on the city.
Al Jazeera also reported that two schools in Parand, southwest of the Iranian capital Tehran, have been hit by a US-Israeli missile strike.
Meanwhile, the head of the World Health Organization has said that it has verified 13 attacks on health infrastructure in Iran amid a US-Israeli campaign, killing four health care workers and injuring 25 others.
The country is effectively cut off from the rest of the world, with the internet operating at around one percent of capacity, according to the Netblocks monitor.
Iranian attacks
Meanwhile, Iranian state TV said Thursday that drones fired by the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of the Islamic republic’s military, had struck the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.
State television did not provide any details on the claim. The Guards had previously alleged to have hit the US carrier, but the Pentagon said at the time that the “missiles launched didn’t even come close”.
It also claimed striking a US oil tanker in the Gulf with a missile.
The ship “was hit by a missile in the north of the Persian Gulf” and “is currently on fire”, IRGC said in a statement reported by state television.
It also claimed a drone attack on a US site in the Iraqi Kurdistan city of Erbil. “The headquarters of the American aggressor forces in Erbil, Iraq, was attacked by the army’s ground forces’ attack drones,” the army said in a statement broadcast by state TV.
The IRGC also claimed to have shot down a US F-15E strike fighter near the country’s southwest borders, Al Jazeera reports citing the semi-official Tasnim news agency. But the US military has denied such reports.
Israel’s Ben Gurion airport and an air force base in the area were also targeted by Iran.
“The heavy Khorramshahr-4 missiles carrying one-tonne warheads were launched at dawn today …toward the heart of Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion airport and the base of the Israeli air force’s 27th squadron located at the airport,” the IRGC said in a statement carried by Tasnim news agency.
Iran’s army also announced that the navy launched “several” Arash attack drones targeting the fuel tanks of the Ramat David Airbase last night, according to Iran’s state-owned Press TV.
Hormuz situation
The maritime sector on Thursday said it had designated the Straits of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman and Gulf as a “warlike operations area” owing to the Iran war.
The upgrade from a “high risk area designation” by unions and maritime employers on March 2 “reflects the continuing and heightened threat to seafarers and vessels operating in the region”, they said in a joint statement.
Around 20,000 seafarers and 15,000 cruise ship passengers are stuck in the Gulf because of the Middle East war, the UN’s International Maritime Organization said.
Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2026