Iran war enters second week, as US seeks “unconditional surrender”

Israeli and US forces expanded ​their bombardment of Iran over the weekend, while Tehran continued to fire missiles at targets across the Middle East, as the war in the region entered its second week.

Catch up quick

Israel says it targeted several fuel-storage complexes in Iran, marking the first time energy infrastructure has been hit since the conflict began.

• Meanwhile, Iran launched multiple waves of retaliatory attacks targeting Israel, US military bases, and neighboring Gulf states.
• The country’s military is now leaning heavily into exploding drones, with the intensity of its ballistic missile attacks declining by ~90% since the war began due to ongoing US-Israeli strikes.

Casualties continue to mount. More than 1,300 people in Iran have been killed as a result of the ongoing strikes, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. Iran’s navy and air force have also been “wiped out”, according to President Trump, who says Israel and the US will soon have complete control of Iranian skies.

• In Lebanon, Israeli strikes targeting Hezbollah have killed nearly 400 people, per the country’s health ministry.
• President Trump on Saturday attended the dignified transfer of six Americans killed in a drone attack on a Kuwait base during the first weekend of fighting. They represent the only US deaths reported thus far.
• Israel has reported 11 deaths from retaliatory strikes by Iran since the conflict began.

Water could become a growing issue. An Iranian drone attack damaged a desalination plant in Bahrain, bringing the war to the oil-rich Persian Gulf’s most strategic resource: drinking water.

• While Iran didn’t claim responsibility for the attack, it came one day after their foreign minister accused the US of striking an Iranian desalination plant.
• The Middle East’s ~5,000 desalination plants, which remove salt from seawater, are the key source of drinking water for millions of residents across the region.

On the horizon

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Friday said the White House expects military operations in the Middle East to last 4-6 weeks.

• Writing on social media, Trump said: "There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
• In an earlier interview, he also expressed a desire to be personally involved in selecting Iran's next leader, similar to Venezuela.

On Sunday, Iran’s Assembly of Experts announced the selection of Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country’s new supreme leader, defying President Trump’s wishes with a new head of state who’s expected to take a confrontational stance against the West.

Iran’s supreme leader is the commander in chief of the armed forces, along with leading the executive branch, judiciary, and legislature. He’s also designated as the pre-eminent authority for the world’s ~200 million Shia Muslims.

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