Tehran, Mar 14: large explosion rocked an area of Iran’s capital where thousands were gathered Friday for the annual state-organised Quds Day to support the Palestinians and call for Israel’s demise.
Israel had earlier warned that it would target the area in central Tehran.
There were no immediate reports of casualties. But the decision to proceed with the mass demonstrations, and Israel’s threat to target the area, underscored the fierce determination on both sides nearly two weeks into a war that has rattled the global economy and shows no sign of letting up.
Iran has continued to launch widespread daily missile and drone attacks on Israel and neighbouring Gulf states, and has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes, even as US and Israeli warplanes pummel military and other targets across Iran.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Thursday vowed to continue the attacks and keep the strait closed in his first public statement since succeeding his father, who was killed in the opening day of the war. Khamenei has not been seen in public since taking over leadership, and the written statement was read by a state TV anchor.
With growing global concerns about a possible energy crisis and no end to the war in sight, the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, remained over USD 100 per barrel. Brent prices have spiked as high as about USD 120 per barrel and are about 40 per cent higher than when Israel and the United States launched the war on February 28.
The US military meanwhile said that four of six crew members of an American KC-135 refuelling plane that went down in Iraq had been found dead and that recovery efforts were ongoing to find the other two.
US Central Command said that the crash wasn’t related to friendly or hostile fire, and that two aircraft were involved, including one that landed safely. The KC-135 is the fourth publicly acknowledged aircraft to crash as part of the US military’s operations against Iran. Last week, three American fighter jets were mistakenly downed by friendly Kuwaiti fire.
Explosion rocks area of mass demonstration
The explosion rocked the Ferdowsi Square area midday, where thousands had gathered for an annual rally organised by the government in which they chanted “death to Israel” and “death to America.”
Israel had issued a warning on a Farsi-language X account for people to clear the area shortly before the blast. But few Iranians would have seen it, as authorities have almost completely shut down the internet since the start of the war. Footage from the scene showed people chanting “God is greatest,” as smoke rose in the area.
Israel did not say what it was targeting, but Iranian leaders often attend the annual rallies.
The hard-liner who leads Iran’s judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, had been giving an interview to a state television reporter at the demonstration when the strike happened. His bodyguards encircled him, as he raised his fist and said Iran “under this rain and missiles will never withdraw.”
Senior security official Ali Larijani, who was also at the Quds Day demonstrations, told Iranian media covering the event that the suspected Israeli attack was a “sign of its desperation.”
Israel had earlier announced another wave of strikes in Iran targeting infrastructure, and said its air force had hit more than 200 targets in the last 24 hours, including missile launchers, defence systems and weapons production sites.
In a social media post hours earlier, US President Donald Trump had said “watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today,” while claiming that Iran’s military had been decimated and that its leaders had been “wiped from the face of the earth.”