Smoke rises in an Israeli bombing attack against a village in southern Lebanon, just north of the Israeli border, early on Saturday. The Israeli forces continue their attacks on southern Lebanon and Beirut on the eighth day of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran after issuing evacuations orders to Lebanese residents. UPI-Yonhap
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran's president apologized Saturday for attacks on “neighboring countries," even as its missiles and drones flew toward Gulf Arab states and hard-liners asserted that Tehran's war strategy wouldn't budge.
A rift between more pragmatic politicians looking to de-escalate the week-old war and others committed to battling the United States and Israel could complicate efforts to end the fighting. Conflicting statements involved two of the three members of the leadership council overseeing Iran since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the war's opening airstrikes.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened that Iran would be “hit very hard" and more “areas and groups of people” would become targets, without elaborating. Already, the conflict has rattled global markets and left Iran’s leadership weakened by hundreds of Israeli and American airstrikes.
Along with his apology, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian dismissed Trump’s call for Tehran to surrender unconditionally, saying: “That’s a dream that they should take to their grave.”
Pezeshkian's message, seemingly filmed in a hurry, underlined the limited powers exercised by the theocracy's leaders over the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which controls the hundreds of ballistic missiles targeting Israel and other countries. It answered only to Khamenei and appears to be picking its own targets.
Earlier, a wave of missiles and drones had disrupted flights at Dubai International Airport, targeted a major Saudi oil facility and sent people fleeing for cover in Bahrain.
And several hours after Pezeshkian’s apology, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain were still sounding alerts or reporting intercepted missiles.
U.S. allies in the Gulf have said the Trump administration did not give them adequate time to prepare for the war.
Iran makes varying statements on attacks
Source: Korea Times News
