Israeli and US strikes have flattened the building where Iran chooses its next new supreme leader, local media reported.
‘The American-Zionist criminals attacked the Assembly of Experts building in Qom,’ south of Tehran, according to the Tasnim news agency.
Footage aired by Iranian outlets showed the complex heavily damaged in the strikes, which also hit the Ferdowsi Square in central Tehran.
Harrowing photos taken in the immediate aftermath of the strike on Iran’s capital city showed people covered in ash and blood fleeing the scene.
Many were seen trying to carry their fellow countrymen away from the site of the bombing.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in US and Israeli strikes on Saturday. The US military today said it has so far carried out over 1,700 strikes against Iran since then.
The latest bombing campaign comes after Donald Trump told Iran’s surviving leaders it’s ‘too late’ to talk.
Writing on his Truth Social account, the President said: ‘Their air defence, Air Force, Navy, and Leadership is gone. They want to talk. I said ‘Too Late!
Harrowing photos taken in the immediate aftermath of the strike on Iran’s capital city showed people covered in ash and blood fleeing the scene
Many were seen trying to carry their fellow countrymen away from the site of the bombing
‘The American-Zionist criminals attacked the Assembly of Experts building in Qom,’ south of Tehran, according to the Tasnim news agency
Trump warned the ‘hardest hits’ are yet to come as the fighting entered its fourth day and promised to retaliate after the US embassy in Saudi Arabia was attacked by drones.
The President also claimed the initial wave of strikes wiped out Washington’s preferred successors to Khamenei.
He said the White House had shortlisted several preferred successors – but insisted the military campaign was ‘so successful’ it eliminated not only the primary options but also the ‘second or third’ choices.
‘The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,’ Mr Trump told ABC News.
Iran is thought to be considering its top security chief Ali Larijani as a choice for leader, along with Khamenei’s second eldest son Mojtaba Khamenei and Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaker of the country’s parliament.
He said 48 Iranian leaders had been killed in the bombings over the weekend, wiping out much of the country’s leadership.
The President has not revealed who was earmarked for the successor but among the dead were one of the regime’s top advisers Ali Shamkhani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard General Mohammad Pakpour and hardline former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In a separate interview with the New York Times, Mr Trump said he had ‘three very good choices’ for the next potential leader for Iran, but did not reveal who these were.
On Monday night Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told state TV that the killing of the supreme leader was a ‘religious crime’ that will have serious consequences.
Footage aired by Iranian outlets showed the complex heavily damaged in the strikes.
Tehran has vowed to stand firm in the face of continuing attacks, with Mr Larijani saying Iran ‘will not negotiate with the United States’.
But Mr Trump claimed he had been contacted by someone within the regime who wanted to make a deal.
Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is also likely to figure prominently in the deliberations of clerics over who will be named supreme leader.
Following Khamenei’s death, Iran is being led by a temporary council made up of its president Masoud Pezeshkian, chief justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei and senior cleric Alireza Arafi.
A member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, charged with choosing a new Supreme Leader, said picking Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s successor ‘won’t take long’, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported on Tuesday.
An attack from two drones on the US Embassy in Riyadh caused a ‘limited fire,’ according to Saudi Arabia’s Defence Ministry, and the embassy urged Americans to avoid the compound.
It followed an attack on the US Embassy in Kuwait. Both embassies said they were closed to the public.
The US 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 US 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.
Pictured: the Assembly of Experts building in Qom before it was hit
Israeli and US strikes have flattened the building where Iran chooses its next new supreme leader, local media reported
The US-Israeli strikes have so far killed at least 787 people, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
In Israel, where Iranian missiles struck several locations, 11 people were killed. The Iranian-supported militant group Hezbollah has also attacked Israel, whose retaliatory strikes killed 52 people in Lebanon.
The US military has confirmed six deaths of American service members. In addition, three people were killed in the United Arab Emirates, and one each in Kuwait and Bahrain.
This is a breaking news story, more to follow.
