By Parisa Hafezi and Steven Scheer
DUBAI/JERUSALEM, March 5 (Reuters) – The U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran entered its sixth day on Thursday with what residents described as even more intensive bombing, while Iran vowed to retaliate anywhere for a U.S. attack on a ship thousands of miles from the battle zone.
Inside Iran, the abrupt postponement of a planned three days of mourning for slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei interrupted apparent plans to swiftly anoint Khamenei’s hardliner son as his successor.
“Today is worse than yesterday. They are striking northern Tehran. We have nowhere to go. It is like a war zone. Help us,” said Mohammadreza, 36, by phone from Tehran, with a shaky voice as explosions rang out from what Israel described as its latest wave of strikes on Iranian government targets.
IRAN VOWS REVENGE AFTER WARSHIP SUNK
Although some international financial markets recovered from falls earlier in the week, the economic fallout of the campaign intensified, with countries around the world cut off from a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas.
Iran vowed to take revenge for a U.S. torpedo attack on an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka, which killed more than 80 sailors thousands of miles from the battle zone. Iran’s foreign minister said the ship had been struck without warning in international waters, and Washington would “bitterly regret” the precedent it had set.
The body of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the first hours of the U.S.-Israeli air campaign in the first assassination of a country’s top ruler by an airstrike, had been due to lie in state in a Tehran prayer hall from Wednesday evening to launch three days of mourning.
But the memorial, expected to draw many thousands of mourners to the streets, was abruptly and indefinitely postponed shortly before it was due to begin.
In the hours before announcing the delay, Iranian officials had said they were close to naming Khamenei’s successor, and that the leading candidate was his son Mojtaba, a powerful hardliner whose selection would be a strong gesture of defiance.
Iranian officials gave no reason for the postponement of the memorial, but a source told Reuters it was motivated in part by fear of assassination of those attending the event while Israeli and U.S. warplanes remain in the skies.
Another source said that it would be logical to wait to announce the new supreme leader until after the elder Khamenei was buried, although given the wartime conditions it was possible a successor could still be named before the memorial.
Memorial ceremonies of Shi’ite political and religious leaders, especially those seen as martyrs, are known for mass public displays of passion.
Announcing the younger Khamenei as successor during a mourning period would allow him to take power while his father’s followers were on the streets, rallying support and making it more difficult for any opponents to mount a challenge.
Israel has said it would consider any replacement for Khamenei who continued hostile policies an immediate target to be killed.
IRANIAN TV HACKED
Israel has said its aim in the war is to overthrow Iran’s clerical rulers. Washington says its goal is to prevent Tehran from being able to project force beyond its borders, but it has also called on Iranians to rise up and seize power.
Many Iranians openly celebrated the death of the supreme leader, whose security forces had killed thousands of anti-government protesters just weeks ago in the worst domestic unrest since the era of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
State television was hacked on Thursday, airing a video of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah who has emerged as a significant opposition figure.
“A heavy burden of destiny rests upon the shoulders of us all. And we, together, will walk this path until final victory. Long live Iran,” he said.
A 25-year-old woman in Tehran who asked that her name not be used for security reasons said those opposed to the government were not yet able to take to the streets while the country was under attack, but had made their feelings clear by posting online videos of their celebrations at Khamenei’s death.
“If Mojtaba takes over, he will be killed as well, so we are not concerned about it,” she said.
Air raid sirens in Israel sent Israelis to shelters. Military spokesman Effie Defrin said there had been a decrease in the number of daily missile launches from Iran, although “the threat still exists”.
“The more we intensify the damage and eliminate the launchers, the more the threat will diminish over time,” he said.
REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS SAY IRAN CONTROLS STRAIT OF HORMUZ
The war has had global economic impact, above all from the interruption to tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows along Iran’s coast.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had hit a U.S. tanker in the northern part of the Gulf and the vessel was on fire, the latest of numerous reports of Iranian attacks on ships. Passage through the Strait of Hormuz would be under the control of the Islamic Republic in time of war, the Guards said.
Azerbaijan warned it was preparing an unspecified response after two Iranian drones flew across its border and wounded four people in the Nakhchivan exclave. Iran, which has launched drones and missiles against U.S. allies in the region, denied targeting Nakhchivan.
In Washington late on Wednesday, Republican senators blocked a motion aimed at stopping the U.S. air campaign against Iran and requiring that military action be authorized by Congress. That rejection leaves President Donald Trump’s power to direct the war largely unbound, as the conflict continues to widen across the Middle East and beyond.
Israel said U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had told his Israeli counterpart, Israel Katz, by telephone: “Keep going until the end – we’re with you.”
(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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