Iran ‘consolidating power’

DESPITE more than two weeks of relentless airstrikes, US intelligence assessments say, Iran’s regime likely will remain in place for now, weakened but more hard-line, with the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps security forces exerting greater control.

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RUBBLE and debris are strewn across a road at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted Beirut's southern suburbs, in the al Kafaat neighborhood yesterday. Israel carried out dawn airstrikes on three Beirut neighbourhoods, hitting a residential building.

(AFP)

The US and Israel have significantly degraded Iran's missile capability and navy, removed the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and wiped out scores of top military and intelligence leaders.

Israel’s defence minister said yesterday that Iran’s top security official and the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ volunteer force were killed in overnight strikes in Iran, claiming to have taken out two of Tehran’s most senior remaining officials.

Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, and Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the Basij, were “eliminated” in strikes overnight, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said.

But the war's costs are mounting ~ at least $12 billion so far and 13 US troops killed. Iran’s vise-like grip on the Strait of Hormuz has slowed shipping traffic to a trickle, creating a historic oil disruption.

Western officials and analysts who study Iran said they see little near-term prospect of a “regime change” end to the 47-year-old Islamic republic or the rise of a more democratic government. The latter is a goal cited by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sometimes by US President Donald Trump.