Bahrain's Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemned the continued malicious drone attacks launched from Iraq towards Bahrain and several Gulf Cooperation Council countries, calling on Baghdad to address these threats and attacks urgently and responsibly.
President Trump stated that Iran's naval forces were 'lying at the bottom of the sea' and warned that any ships approaching the blockade would be 'immediately ELIMINATED.' He compared the blockade enforcement to US counter-narcotics operations at sea.
Pahlavi pledged to lead a transition to a 'free and democratic Iran.' He called on President Trump to continue the American-Israeli military operation against Iran, in the hope of displacing a regime he decried for placing a 'sea of blood' between itself and its people.
Iran, the officials say, was prepared for this conflict. The command structures built to survive a decapitation strike appear to remain substantially intact, allowing Iranian retaliatory strikes to begin against Israel, Qatar and Bahrain within hours of the initial attacks.
Mojtaba was announced as supreme leader on March 9 after his fellow hardliners rallied behind him to succeed his father. His public response was limited to a written statement on Telegram three days later, intensifying the speculation about how badly he was wounded during Israel's strike on his father's residence.
For decades, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been a shadowy figure in Iranian politics, rarely seen in public and almost never heard speaking. He has never given interviews, has held no elected office and appears publicly only on rare ceremonial occasions. Even among political insiders, knowledge of his views is fragmentary.