Iran confirmed on Sunday that its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, died in US and Israeli airstrikes the previous day. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that US objectives in the operation against Iran “can be achieved without ground forces”.
Buenos Aires, March 2 (NA) — The US government urgently ordered its citizens to leave the Middle East on Monday, as airstrikes against Iran and Lebanon intensified amid the military conflict between the American nation and Israel against Tehran.
Iran responded to the attacks by launching missiles into Israeli territory, leaving at least ten dead. However, US President Donald Trump doubled down and announced that operations will continue “at full force,” though he did not rule out future dialogue with new Iranian leadership.
In this situation, the US message to its citizens was to leave the Middle East, in a warning covering Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE, and Yemen.
The request was issued by the US State Department and shared on social networks, aiming for citizens to “leave now by commercial means due to serious security risks” in those countries.
The United States and Israel launched massive airstrikes against Iran on Saturday morning. “We are focused on destroying its ballistic missile launchers, arsenals, and manufacturing capacity, as well as its one-way attack drones and navy,” a statement declared.
That same day, US President Donald Trump affirmed that the military campaign against Iran has the “capacity to last much longer” than the four or five weeks he projected in media interviews the previous day.
“At this time, we are not prepared for the deployment of ground forces, but obviously the president has those options,” he stated.
