US President Donald Trump said Thursday he believes he should play a role in choosing Iran’s supreme leader as the United States and Israel continue to attack Iran for a sixth straight day. Meanwhile, Iran continued to retaliate against Israel, U.S. military bases and several countries across the region, the AP reported.
Trump also rejected Mojtaba Khamenei, who was seen as the leading candidate to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, who was reportedly killed in the first attacks that started the war.
His remarks to the Axios news channel are expected to spark further debate over whether the US and Israel aim to topple the Islamic Republic of Iran or simply push for changes in its policies as the conflict continues with no clear end in sight.
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The conflict is intensifying every day, attracting 14 more countries in the Middle East and other regions. On Thursday, Azerbaijan claimed that Iran carried out a drone attack against it, although Tehran denied the accusation. Iran also warned that the United States would “bitterly regret” sinking an Iranian warship near Sri Lanka the previous day, the AP reported.
Meanwhile, Israel ordered a large-scale evacuation of all of Beirut’s southern suburbs as clashes with Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters intensified. UN peacekeepers reported ground fighting in southern Lebanon as more Israeli forces moved across the border, the AP noted.
All the while, the US and Israel have been whipping Iran with nationwide strikes targeting its military capabilities, leadership and nuclear program.
Iran’s attacks have targeted its Arab neighbors, disrupting oil supplies and snarling global air traffic. The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 100 in Lebanon and about a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six American soldiers were killed.
Trump compares Iran to Venezuela
In an interview with Axios, Trump derided 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, who has never been elected or appointed to government office, as a “lightweight.”
“We want someone who will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump said.
“I have to be involved in appointments, like with Delca in Venezuela,” Trump said, referring to the South American country’s acting president. Delcy Rodríguez took power in January after Trump ordered a US military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro and bring him to the US to face federal drug conspiracy charges, the AP reported.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said this week that Iran’s next supreme leader — if he continues to threaten Israel, the U.S. and others — “will be targeted for elimination.”
Iran remains defiant
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, accused the United States Navy of carrying out what he called an “atrocity at sea” after it sank Iran’s IRIS Dena frigate in the Indian Ocean earlier this week, an incident that reportedly left at least 87 dead, the AP reported.
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“Mark my words: The US will bitterly regret (the precedent) it has set,” he said on social media.
The Iranian ship sunk by the US Navy was returning from an exercise organized by the Indian Navy, in which the US also joined. Sri Lankan authorities said 32 crew members were rescued. Araghchi said he had “almost 130” crew members on board.
TOPSHOT – (COMBO) This combination of images captures images from a video released by the US Department of Defense on March 4, 2026, showing what the Department of Defense says is periscope footage of a US Navy submarine firing on an Iranian warship and sinking it in the Indian Ocean. A US submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday. Nearly 150 are missing and several dead after the IRIS Dena frigate sank off Sri Lanka on Wednesday, officials said. (Photo: US Department of Defense / AFP) (AFP)
An Iranian cleric later called on state television to shed both Israeli and “Trump’s blood”.
Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli’s statement represented a rare call to violence by an ayatollah, one of the most senior clerics in Shiite Islam. There are dozens of them in Iran.
Sri Lanka said another Iranian warship docked off its coast on Thursday and that more than 200 sailors were being escorted to a naval base on the outskirts of the capital, Colombo. The ship will be brought to a port in the eastern region of the island nation, Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said.
The war continues to expand
Israel reported several incoming rocket attacks, with air raid sirens sounding in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Israel’s military said it responded by launching a series of strikes targeting Iranian ballistic missile launch sites, the AP reported.
Gulf countries also said they were targeted. In the United Arab Emirates, a drone was intercepted near Al Dhafra Air Base, which hosts members of the United States armed forces, and six people were injured by falling debris, authorities said.
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In Qatar, officials evacuated residents living near the United States embassy in Doha as a precaution, and the country later reported a missile attack on Doha. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia said it shot down a drone in a province along its border with Jordan.
Kuwait said missiles were fired at it on Thursday evening, activating air defense systems.
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Bahrain said an Iranian missile hit a state oil refinery on Thursday, sparking a fire that was put out. She said the refinery was still operating and there were no reports of casualties. Bahrain previously said its forces had intercepted 75 Iranian ballistic missiles and 124 drones since the start of the war.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev accused Iran of carrying out an “unjustified act of terrorism and aggression” after a drone crashed near an airport in Nakhchivan, a region bordering Iran, on Thursday. Another drone fell near the school. Four civilians, all airport workers, were injured, authorities said.
Aliyev said the army had been instructed to “prepare and carry out retaliatory measures”.
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Iran has rejected accusations that it launched drones toward Azerbaijan and has repeatedly denied targeting oil facilities or other civilian infrastructure, although some of its missiles and drones have hit such sites, the AP reported.
Since the war began on Saturday, several ships have been attacked in the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping route through which about a fifth of the world’s oil flows. The attacks and rising tensions in the region have sent global oil prices soaring.
