(Corrects slug to WRAPUP 2)
By Parisa Hafezi and Steve Holland
DUBAI/WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump encouraged Iranian Kurdish forces in Iraq to launch attacks against Iran as the Middle East conflict widened, with Azerbaijan warning it would retaliate for being targeted by Iranian missiles.
Israel on Friday said it had started a “broad-scale” wave of attacks against infrastructure targets in Tehran, as Gulf cities came under renewed bombardment by Iran.
Iran launched an overnight drone attack on the U.S. Al Udied airbase in Qatar, the biggest U.S. base in the Middle East, Qatari officials said. There were no reported casualties.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Iranian forces had targeted the Ramat David airbase and a radar site in Israel, the Al-Adiri camp in Kuwait where U.S. forces are stationed, and a drone attack on a base hosting U.S. troops in Erbil, Iraq.
A Guards spokesperson said new initiatives and weapons would soon be deployed to confront Israeli and U.S. aggression, without giving details.
The seven-day war has now seen Iran target Israel, the Gulf states, Cyprus, Turkey and Azerbaijan, and spread to the Indian Ocean where a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian naval ship.
“This was an ‘existential war’ for Iran, leaving us with no choice but to respond wherever American attacks originate from,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh said at the Raisina Dialogues conference in Delhi on Friday.
On the possibility of the Iranian Kurdish forces entering Iran from neighbouring Iraq, Trump told Reuters on Thursday: “I think it’s wonderful that they want to do that, I’d be all for it.”
Two Iranian drone attacks targeted an Iranian opposition camp in Iraqi Kurdistan on Thursday, security sources said.
Iranian Kurdish militias have consulted with the United States about whether, and how, to attack Iran’s security forces in the country, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter.
Trump, speaking with Reuters in a telephone interview, also said the United States must have a role in deciding who will be the next leader of Iran after airstrikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week.
“We’re going to have to choose that person along with Iran. We’re going to have to choose that person,” he said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday that the U.S. was not expanding its military objectives in Iran, despite what Trump said about choosing the country’s next leader.
“There’s no expansion in our objectives. We know exactly what we’re trying to achieve,” he said. Hegseth said the objectives are to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
Hegseth on Wednesday acknowledged the U.S. military was investigating an apparent strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed scores of children on Saturday.
Two U.S. officials told Reuters that military investigators now believed U.S. forces were likely responsible, but had not yet reached a final conclusion.
The attack on Iran is a political gamble for the Republican president, with opinion polls showing little public support and Americans concerned about the rise in gasoline prices caused by disruption to energy supplies. Trump dismissed that concern.
Shares on Wall Street fell on Thursday, weighed by surging oil prices, as the economic impact of the campaign intensified, with countries around the world cut off from a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas and air transport still facing chaos and global logistics increasingly snarled.
AZERBAIJAN PREPARES TO RETALIATE
Azerbaijan was preparing unspecified retaliatory measures on Thursday after it said four Iranian drones crossed its border and injured four people in the Nakhchivan exclave.
“We will not tolerate this unprovoked act of terror and aggression against Azerbaijan,” President Ilham Aliyev told a meeting of his Security Council.
Iran, which has a significant Azeri minority, denied it targeted its neighbour.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia warned Israeli residents on Friday to evacuate towns within 5 km (3 miles) of the border.
“Your military’s aggression against Lebanese sovereignty and safe citizens, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the expulsion campaign it is carrying out will not go unchallenged,” Hezbollah said in a message posted on its Telegram channel in Hebrew.
French President Emmanuel Macron said France would provide armored transport vehicles and other support to strengthen its cooperation with the Lebanese Armed Forces.
US MUNITIONS FULL
Hegseth and Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads U.S. forces in the Middle East, said during a briefing that the U.S. had enough munitions to continue its bombardment indefinitely.
“Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation,” Hegseth told reporters at Central Command headquarters in Florida. “Our munitions are full up and our will is ironclad.”
The Pentagon earlier this week said the military campaign, known as Operation Epic Fury, was focused on destroying Iran’s offensive missiles, missile production and navy, while not allowing Tehran to have a nuclear weapon.
Cooper said the U.S. had now hit at least 30 Iranian ships, including a large drone carrier the size of a World War Two aircraft carrier.
B-2 bombers had dropped dozens of 2,000 penetrator bombs targeting deeply buried ballistic missile launchers, and bombings were also targeting Iran’s missile production facilities, he said.
Iran’s ballistic missile attacks had decreased by 90% since the first day of the war, while drone attacks had decreased by 83%.
In Iran, at least 1,230 people have been killed, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, including 175 schoolgirls and staff killed at the primary school in Minab on the first day of the war.
Another 77 have been killed in Lebanon, its Health Ministry says. Thousands fled southern Beirut on Thursday after Israel warned residents to leave.
(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, Steve Holland in Washington and Reuters bureaus; Writing by Brad Brooks and Stephen Coates; Editing by Alex Richardson, Sharon Singleton, Diane Craft, Scott Malone and Michael Perry)
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