By JON GAMBRELL, DAVID RISING, ELENA BECATOROS and SAMY MAGDY Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran launched a new wave of attacks against Israel, American bases and countries around the region Thursday, while warning the U.S. would “bitterly regret” torpedoing an Iranian warship. Tehran’s expanding retaliatory strikes came even as Israel and the U.S. hammered Iran for a sixth day.
The war has escalated each day, affecting an additional 14 countries across the Middle East and beyond. On Thursday, Azerbaijan accused Iran of attacking it with drones — though Tehran denied that. A day earlier, the U.S. said it sank an Iranian frigate in the waters off Sri Lanka.
Israel meanwhile issued a mass evacuation warning for all of Beirut’s southern suburbs as the fighting escalated with Lebanon’s Iran-allied Hezbollah militants. U.N. peacekeepers reported ground combat in southern Lebanon as more Israeli troops crossed the border.
All the while, the U.S. and Israel have battered Iran with nationwide strikes, targeting their military capabilities, leadership and nuclear program. Israeli and American leaders have also suggested that toppling the government was a goal — and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed when they launched the war Saturday. But the exact aims and timelines have repeatedly shifted, and the conflict increasingly appeared to be open-ended.
Iran’s attacks have targeted their Arab neighbors, disrupted oil supplies and snarled global air travel.
The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 100 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six U.S. troops have been killed.
Iran remains defiant
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the U.S. Navy of committing an “an atrocity at sea” for sinking the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean earlier in the week, killing at least 87 people.
“Mark my words: The U.S. will come to bitterly regret (the) precedent it has set,” he said on social media.
An Iranian cleric later called on state television for the shedding of both Israeli and “Trump’s blood.”
The statement from Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli represented a rare call for violence by an ayatollah, one of the highest ranks within the clergy of Shiite Islam. There are dozens in Iran.
The war keeps expanding
Israel announced multiple incoming missile attacks and air sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Israeli military said it carried out a wave of strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile launch sites.
Gulf countries also reported coming under fire. In the United Arab Emirates, a drone was shot down near the Al Dhafra Air Base, which hosts U.S. forces, and shrapnel fell to the ground, authorities said. Six people were wounded.
Qatar evacuated residents near the U.S. Embassy in Doha as a temporary precaution and later reported a missile attack on the city. Saudi Arabia said it destroyed a drone in its province bordering Jordan. Sirens sounded in Bahrain Thursday afternoon, while the country’s Defense Ministry said its forces had intercepted 75 Iranian ballistic missiles and 124 drones since the start of the war on Saturday.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev accused Iran of carrying out “a groundless act of terror and aggression” after a drone crashed Thursday near the airport in Nakhchivan, a region bordering Iran that is separated from the rest of the country by Armenia. Another drone fell near a school. Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s office said four civilians, all airport workers, were wounded.
Aliyev said the military had been instructed “to prepare and implement retaliatory measures.”
Iran’s general staff of the armed forces denied it had launched drones toward Azerbaijan. Iran has also repeatedly denied targeting oil infrastructure and other civilian targets, even as its missiles and drones have hit such sites.
A tanker apparently came under attack off the coast of Kuwait early Thursday, expanding the area where commercial shipping was in danger, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center run by the British military. It said there was an explosion but did not offer a cause.
Since the war began Saturday, ships have been attacked in the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped. That has caused oil prices to soar.
Israel issues evacuation warning for Beirut suburbs
Israel issued an evacuation notice calling for all residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs to “save your lives and evacuate your homes immediately,” apparently signaling plans for heavy bombardment of the area.
Since the resurgence of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, which struck Israel in the opening days of the war, Israel has hit sites in Beirut’s suburbs and issued a blanket warning for residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate.
Among the 80 targets in Lebanon the Israel military said it hit over the past 24 hours were “several command centers” used by Hezbollah in Beirut. It showed video footage of a building being hit, but provided no further details.
A spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said on Thursday that peacekeepers had seen and heard clashes, including ground combat, in southern Lebanon as more Israeli forces have moved across the border.
“Ground combat was observed west of Kfar Kila,” a village near the border with Israel, overnight, UNIFIL spokesperson Tilak Pokharel said. Peacekeepers also saw “air attacks and flares and heard explosions” in the town of Khiyam, about five kilometers (three miles) from the border.
Iranian warship was hit on its way home from multinational exercises
The Iranian ship sunk by the U.S. Navy was returning from an exercise hosted by the Indian navy that the U.S. also joined.
Sri Lankan authorities said 32 crew members were rescued, while its navy recovered at least 87 bodies.
Araghchi said it had been carrying “almost 130” crew.
Sri Lanka’s media minister and government spokesman, Nalinda Jayatissa, told parliament Thursday that another Iranian ship had arrived in its waters. Jayatissa did not provide further details about the ship.
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Rising reported from Bangkok, Becatoros from Athens, Greece, and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut, Lebanon, Elaine Kurtenbach in Bangkok, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem, Aida Sultanova in Baku, Azerbaijan, Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, and Giovanna Dell’Orto in Miami contributed to this report.