A billboard featuring a picture of newly appointed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei is displayed during a gathering in support of him in Tehran, Iran, Monday. EPA-Yonhap
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran named the hard-line Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his late father as supreme leader on Monday, signaling no letup in the war launched by the United States and Israel. Oil prices surged as Iran attacked regional energy infrastructure and the U.S. and Israel bombed targets across Iran.
The secretive 56-year-old cleric — - only the third supreme leader in the history of the Islamic Republic — has close ties to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which has been firing missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf Arab states since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , who had ruled since 1989, was killed during the war’s opening salvo.
The appointment marked a new sign of defiance by Iran’s embattled leadership after more than a week of heavy U.S. and Israeli bombardment, suggesting Tehran is not close to giving up on what it considers a fight for the Islamic theocracy's survival.
World markets plummeted and Brent crude oil, the international standard, surged to nearly $120 a barrel Monday, about 65% higher than when the war started, before retreating. The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank more than 600 points, or over 1.3%, shortly after opening — marking a drop of more than 6-1/2% from its all-time high close in mid-February.
Trump dismisses oil price concerns
Iran’s attacks in the Strait of Hormuz have all but stopped tankers from using the key shipping lane through which a fifth of the world’s oil is carried. Fire broke out at an oil facility that Iran attacked in the United Arab Emirates. Bahrain’s only oil refinery was apparently also hit and Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted several drones attacking its Shaybah oil field.
“There is not an oil shortage,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social overnight. “Prices will drop again soon,” he added, suggesting shipments from Venezuela to the U.S. could help offset the price spike.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States is “well on our way” to achieving its objective, which he said was to eliminate Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile, and its ability to produce and launch them. The administration has offered shifting rationales and timelines since the start of the conflict.
Elsewhere in the region, sirens blared multiple times across Israel on Monday amid unrelenting Iranian drones and missiles. A man was killed in central Israel in a missile strike, the first such death in Israel in a week, and a woman was wounded.
Source: Korea Times News
