The US sinks an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka, and NATO air defences shoot down a missile fired towards Türkiye, as more countries are dragged into the international crisis.
The US has sunk an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka, and NATO air defences have shot down a missile fired towards Türkiye, as more countries are dragged into the international crisis fuelled by a widening war.
Meanwhile, the son of slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reportedly emerged as the frontrunner to succeed him and lead Iran’s Islamic Republic.
The US is continuing to project confidence its operation is achieving its goals in Iran.
“They are toast and they know it,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said of Iran’s remaining leaders.
He said the US and Israel were on the cusp of taking “uncontested and complete control of Iran’s skies”, and he confirmed an American submarine had sunk an Iranian warship “that thought it was safe in international waters”.
Sri Lanka said its rescuers recovered 87 bodies and saved 32 people after the IRIS Dena was torpedoed near its southern coast. About 60 Iranian sailors were unaccounted-for.
The Israeli military said its aircraft had struck a compound in eastern Tehran housing all Iran’s security bodies, including the Revolutionary Guard, intelligence, cyber warfare and internal police in charge of cracking down on protests.
Israel also told residents to leave a swathe of southern Lebanon as it pressed its assault on the Iran-backed group Hezbollah.
Türkiye said NATO air defences shot down an Iranian ballistic missile that was heading into Turkish airspace early on Wednesday, local time.
It marked the first time a NATO member had been drawn into the war and raised the possibility of a major expansion involving its bloc allies.
But Mr Hegseth later said there was “no sense that it would trigger anything like Article Five”, the NATO defence clause that commits member countries to defending other members from attack.
It was unclear where the missile was headed, but the US has air forces stationed at the Inirlik base in Türkiye’s south. NATO condemned Iran’s targeting of Türkiye.
Dan Caine, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iran’s missile and drone attacks on Gulf states were slowing down.
He said there had been an 86 per cent decline in ballistic missile shots from Iran since the first day of the war. Iranian drone attacks were down 73 per cent, he said.
The continuous pounding of parts of Tehran prompted Iran to postpone a funeral ceremony for Khamenei, Iranian state media reported.
There are reports from inside Iran that his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is firming up as the favourite to succeed his father.
But Foad Izadi, an associate professor in the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran, told the ABC he was sceptical.
“That is one of [exiled crown prince Reza] Pahlavi’s outlets that is promoting that,” Professor Izadi said.
“The news that we have is that they haven’t voted yet. So I think we shouldn’t take that very seriously.”
Professor Izadi, a supporter of the ruling regime, predicted the US and Israel would fail in their bid to encourage Iranians to overthrow the regime.
“These are pipe dreams,” he said.
“Even people who did not like government policies, they don’t want their children to be bombed when they’re at school. They don’t want their hospitals to be bombed.”
The professor said Trump had “unified Iranians more than any Iranian politician could ever do”.
“Anywhere in Tehran, if you open your window you will hear at 7, 8, 9 o’clock at night, people chanting death to Trump and death to Netanyahu. They were chanting against these illegal acts.”
