By Reuters
WASHINGTON: The U.S. and Israeli air war against Iran widened, with no end in sight as Israel attacked Lebanon in response to strikes by Hezbollah and Tehran kept up its attacks on Gulf states that host U.S. military bases.
U.S. President Donald Trump said the operation could continue for some weeks and that it was unclear who was in charge in Iran after the targeted killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening hours of the U.S.-Israel campaign over the weekend.
The attack on Iran has pitched the Gulf into war, killed scores of civilians in Iran, Israel and Lebanon, thrown global air transport into chaos and shut down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s oil trade skirts the Iranian coast, sending oil prices surging.
Underlining the risks, Kuwait mistakenly shot down three American F-15E fighter jets during an Iranian attack, U.S. Central Command said. All six crew members ejected and were safely recovered. Video filmed at a location verified by Reuters showed one of the planes spiralling out of the sky, an engine on fire.
The U.S. military said it had struck more than 1,250 targets in Iran and destroyed 11 Iranian ships.
For Trump, the weekend strikes against a foe of the U.S. and its allies for generations amounted to the biggest U.S. foreign policy gamble in decades. He has said the U.S. faced an imminent threat from Iran that justified war, although he gave no specifics and some U.S. lawmakers said he has shown no evidence to back that assessment.
Six U.S. service personnel have been killed so far, all in Iran’s retaliatory attacks over the weekend on Kuwait. The total included two announced by the U.S. military on Monday who were previously listed as unaccounted for.
The campaign could pose a major political risk for the president’s Republican Party in this year’s midterm elections, with only one in four Americans supporting the attack, according to a weekend Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Average U.S. retail gasoline prices rose above $3 per gallon, in part due to the conflict, a worrying sign for a president who already faces growing discontent over bread-and-butter issues.
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