Iran vows no surrender as air strikes hit Tehran airport / Photo: ATTA KENARE - AFP
Iran vows no surrender as air strikes hit Tehran airport
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian vowed Saturday that his country would never surrender, as Israel announced a fresh blitz led by 80 fighter jets which set one of Tehran's main airports on fire.
The wave of pre-dawn Israeli raids was one of the biggest since the bombing campaign began last Saturday, with a military academy, an underground command centre and a missile storage facility named as targets.
AFP photos showed fire and smoke billowing from Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport, one of two that serve the capital.
But President Masoud Pezeshkian struck a defiant tone in a speech broadcast on state TV in which he appeared to address US President Donald Trump, who said Friday that only Iran's "unconditional surrender" could end the war.
Iran's enemies "must take their wish for the unconditional surrender of the Iranian people to their graves," Pezeshkian said, in a speech broadcast on state TV.
Iran also hit back on Saturday, with air raid alerts and explosions heard above Jerusalem as well as Gulf cities Dubai, Manama and near Riyadh -- where Saudi Arabia intercepted a ballistic missile fired at an air base housing US military personnel.
Dubai airport, the world's busiest for international traffic, briefly suspended all operations on Saturday after an aerial interception in the area.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards also said they had targeted the oil tanker Prima in the Gulf as it attempted to cross the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint for global shipping that Iran has effectively closed.
Pezeshkian issued an apology to his Gulf neighbours, some of which host major US military bases, saying that they would only be targeted if their territories were used as launchpads to attack Iran.
Now entering its second week, the war was sparked by joint Israeli and US airstrikes last Saturday that killed Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei and destroyed military, administrative and security infrastructure.
The conflict has since widened to Lebanon, as well as Cyprus in the EU, Turkey and Azerbaijan -- and reached as far as waters off Sri Lanka where US forces sank an Iranian warship with a torpedo.
- Human cost -
Inside Iran, damage to infrastructure and residential buildings is mounting, while residents of the capital report growing anxiety and a heavy presence of security forces on the streets.
"I don't think anyone who hasn't experienced war would understand it," a terrified 26-year-old teacher told AFP on condition of anonymity. "When you hear the bombs, you have no idea where they will hit."
The Iranian health ministry put the civilian death toll at 926 on Friday, with around 6,000 injured -- numbers that AFP could not independently verify.
Israel has also intensified its air strikes on Lebanon, repeatedly striking and ordering the evacuation of Beirut's densely populated southern suburbs, where the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah holds sway.
Lebanon's health ministry said at least 217 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam warned that a "humanitarian disaster is looming".
In addition to the toll, 300,000 people in the country had been forced to flee their homes, the Norwegian Refugee Council said
The consequences of the conflict reach far beyond those in the immediate firing line, however.
Global stock markets have slumped, while crude oil prices have surged, with analysts warning that there appears to be no clear path to ending a conflict that US and Israeli officials have suggested could last a month or more.
Trump, who has given varying reasons for starting the war, has spurned fresh talks with Tehran, and said on Truth Social on Friday that "there will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER".
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that when the president determines Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States and the operation's goals are realised, "Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender, whether they say it themselves or not".
- Defiance -
Trump also promised to help rebuild the country's economy if Tehran installs someone "acceptable" to him to replace Iran's late supreme leader.
Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, said the United States would have no role in selecting Khamenei's successor.
"The selection of Iran's leadership will take place strictly in accordance with our constitutional procedures and solely by the will of the Iranian people, without any foreign interference," he added.
Though Iranian retaliation has been inflicted widely across the Middle East, US rivals China and Russia have stayed largely out of the fray despite their ties to the Islamic Republic.
Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced support for an "immediate" ceasefire during a phone call with Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday, the Kremlin said.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States is "not concerned" about reports that Russia is providing intelligence to Iran on US troop positions and movements.
While declining to confirm the reports, Hegseth, in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes", said: "We're tracking everything."
The war has killed six US service members and Trump is to attend the return of their bodies at a transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Saturday.
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