TEHRAN – Huge fireballs and clouds of thick smoke erupted over Tehran on Sunday after US-Israeli air strikes hit fuel depots in the city, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards vowed to fight on for months to come.

Israel’s deadly campaign also reached into the heart of downtown Beirut with a strike aimed at killing “key commanders” in Iran’s covert Quds Force in the Lebanese capital on Saturday. Lebanon’s health ministry said the strike killed at least four people.

As the war extended into its ninth day, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had enough supplies to continue their aerial drone and missile war over the Middle East for up to six months, while US President Donald Trump again refused to rule out sending American ground troops into Iran.

Guards spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini said Iran had so far used only first- and second-generation missiles, but would use “advanced and less-used long-range missiles” in the coming days.

Saudi Arabia intercepted a wave of drones headed for targets including the diplomatic quarter in its capital Riyadh, Kuwait said an attack hit fuel tanks at its international airport and Bahrein reported that a water desalination plant had been damaged in an Iranian drone attack.

Warplanes hit five oil facilities in overnight strikes in and around the Iranian capital, killing four people, the CEO of the national oil products distribution firm told state television.

Tehran’s governor told the IRNA news agency that fuel distribution had been “temporarily interrupted” in the capital while repairs were carried out.
Analysts warn there is still no clear path to ending a conflict that US and Israeli officials say could last a month or longer.

Trump has suggested Iran’s economy could be rebuilt if a leader “acceptable” to Washington replaces the late supreme leader, which Tehran has rejected.
China and Russia have largely stayed on the sidelines despite close ties with Tehran.
China’s top diplomat Wang Yi said on Sunday that the war in the Middle East should “never have happened”.

“This is a war that should never have happened,” he told a press conference in Beijing, adding that “a strong fist does not mean strong reason. The world cannot return to the law of the jungle.” 

– Nampa/AFP