Trump threatens Iran following new wave of attacks on Gulf states and
Israel
[March 13, 2026]
By JON GAMBRELL, DAVID RISING and SALLY ABOU ALJOUD
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran launched multiple attacks early
Friday on Gulf Arab states, including dozens of drones at Saudi Arabia,
following warnings from its new supreme leader about hosting American
bases, and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened major new retaliation.
“Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today," Trump wrote in a
post on his social media platform Truth Social. “Iran’s Navy is gone,
their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are
being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the
earth.”
The comments came the day after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba
Khamenei vowed to “not refrain from avenging the blood” of Iranians
killed, and warned Gulf Arab nations to shut U.S. bases, saying the
notion of American protection was “nothing more than a lie.”
A large midday explosion rocked a Tehran square filled with
demonstrators who were there for the annual Quds Day event in support of
Palestinians, Iranian state television reported.
The cause of the blast in the area of Ferdowsi Square wasn't immediately
known, but came shortly after Israel had warned people to clear the area
because it planned a strike. There were no immediate reports of
casualties or damage.
Ongoing attacks didn't deter thousands of people to take to the streets
for Quds Day, with crowds chanting “death to Israel” and “death to
America."
Footage from the square showed people shouting “God is the greatest” as
smoke rose.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said that four of six crew members
of an American KC-135 refueling plane that went down in Iraq had been
found dead and that recovery efforts were ongoing to find the other two.
And a French soldier who was stationed in the north of the country was
killed in an attack, the French president said Friday.
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 $100 per barrel as Iran kept its stranglehold on
shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway through
which a fifth of the world's oil transits on its way from the Persian
Gulf to the open seas.
Brent prices have spiked as high as about $120 per barrel and are about
40% higher than when Israel and the United States attacked Iran on Feb.
28 to start the war.
Iran has been attacking ships that try to transit the strait, and
Khamenei's comments — his first to the public since being named to
replace his father, who was killed during the first day of the conflict
— said that Iran would continue to block the waterway.
New attacks on Gulf nations
Iran has been attacking oil and other infrastructure around the Gulf
region, and on Friday Saudi Arabia that it had downed nearly 50 drones
sent in multiple waves.
In Oman, two people were killed when two drones crashed in an industrial
area in the region of Sohar, the Oman News Agency reported.
Sirens also sounded in Bahrain warning of incoming fire, and black smoke
billowed from an industrial area in Dubai, after a blaze that
authorities said was sparked by debris from an interception.
A building at the Dubai International Financial Center also sustained
damage when hit with debris from what authorities described as a
“successful interception.” DIFC is an economic free zone for banks,
capital traders and wealth managers, home to exclusive restaurants and
nightclubs for the city-state’s elite.
Iran said earlier this week that it would target banks and financial
institutions, after an airstrike hit a bank in Tehran.
Nearly 60 people were wounded in northern Israel after Lebanese militant
group Hezbollah said that it had fired several rocket salvoes toward the
area and at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. Almost all the injuries
were described as very minor.
One person was killed in southwestern Beirut in an Israeli strike,
according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, and another attack hit an
apartment in the capital, leaving it engulfed in flames. Following the
attacks, the Israeli army said that it had been targeting a member of
Iran-linked Hezbollah.
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Residents inspect a house destroyed by an Iranian missile strike in
Zarzir, northern Israel, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel
Schalit)
In eastern Lebanon, a strike on an apartment wounded a local
official with the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and
killed his two sons, the state-run National News Agency reported.
For the past two years, Israel has targeted officials with the
group, known as al-Jamaa al-Islamiya or the Islamic Group.
More than 600 people have been killed in Lebanon since the fighting
began, the Health Ministry has reported. and nearly 800,000 have
been internally displaced, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
Israel also said it had begun a wave of strikes on Iran targeting
infrastructure. The military said that the Israeli air force had hit
more than 200 targets in Iran over the past 24 hours, including
missile launchers, defense systems and weapons production sites.
Before the blast in Tehran's Ferdowsi Square, Israel's military
issued a warning on its Farsi-language X account that it would
“conduct operations” there later in the day.
“Your presence in these areas puts your life at risk,” the Israeli
military said.
It wasn't clear how people in Tehran would have been able to see the
message, with the internet broadly shut down by Iran's theocracy,
though many have workarounds.
Security official Ali Larijani, who was taking part in the Quds Day
demonstrations, told Iranian media covering the event that the
suspected Israeli attack was a “sign of its desperation.”
Iranian authorities say that more than 1,300 people have been killed
there, and Israel has reported 12 deaths. The U.S. has lost at least
11 soldiers, while another eight have suffered severe injuries.
In his Friday morning post, Trump said that "we are totally
destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically,
and otherwise."
“They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47
years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of
America, am killing them,” Trump said. “What a great honor it is to
do so!”
Larijani said that Trump doesn’t understand that “the more pressure
he puts on the people, the greater their willpower will be.”
French soldier killed in Iraq
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that a French
soldier was killed in an attack targeting Irbil in Iraq’s northern
Kurdish region. France earlier said that six soldiers had been hurt
in a drone strike in Irbil, where French troops are deployed as part
of a multinational counterterrorism mission supporting Iraqi forces
in their fight against militants from the Islamic State group.
In the same region, U.K. officials said that several U.S. personnel
suffered minor injuries Wednesday when drone strikes hit a base in
Irbil that houses both British and American troops.
Italy said that a base where it has troops in Irbil was also hit
Wednesday, but that there were no injuries. The Italian contingent
in the region trains local Kurdish troops at the request of the
Iraqi government
Recovery efforts were ongoing in western Iraq to try and find the
other two crew of the American KC-135 refueling aircraft that
crashed after four bodies were recovered, the U.S. military said.
U.S. 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 U.S. military’s operations against Iran. Last week,
three American fighter jets were mistakenly downed by friendly
Kuwaiti fire.
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Rising reported from Bangkok and Abou AlJoud from Beirut. Bassem
Mroue in Beirut, and Sam Mednik in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to
this story.
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