Tehran says no talks, Trump sees more deaths, Israel hits Beirut

Iran continues to strike US assets across the Gulf after the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and up to 40 top Iranian officials. The attacks have killed one person in Bahrain, with Iraq and Kuwait reporting more Iranian raids.
Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, has refuted US media claims that he had made a fresh push to resume nuclear talks with Washington.
Iran’s leaders projecting calm as they navigate Khamenei’s succession
We have been speaking to Trita Parsi, a Washington DC-based analyst, on the succession in Iran after Khamenei’s killing.

He told Al Jazeera that it was crucial for the Iranian leadership to act swiftly, but also in accordance with established rules.

“They want to show that they’re in control, that they’re not panicking, that they’re not improvising or setting aside the rules in order to expedite this,” Parsi said. “The question is whether they will go for a temporary solution of having a council rather than a supreme leader for the duration of the war and postpone that decision. And perhaps even turning it into permanently a council.”

So far, the analyst said, Iranian leaders have taken great effort to give the impression that they are in control of that process.
US embassy in Kuwait warns of ongoing missile and drone threats
The US embassy in Kuwait says there is a “continuing threat of missile and UAV attacks” over the country.

“The US Embassy in Kuwait urges US citizens in Kuwait to shelter in place, review security plans in the event of an attack, and to stay alert in case of additional future attacks,” it said in a statement.

Embassy personnel are sheltering in place, it added.

Will Gulf states enter the war?
When Iranian missiles slammed into Doha, Dubai and Manama over the weekend, they shattered more than glass and concrete – they also were a blow to the Gulf states’ carefully cultivated image as oases of stability, insulated from the crises and conflicts in the rest of the Middle East.

Now, countries in the region face what analysts describe as an impossible choice: strike back and risk being seen as fighting alongside Israel, or remain passive while their cities burn.

“For people and political leaders here, seeing Manama, Doha and Dubai bombed is as strange and unimaginable as seeing Charlotte, Seattle, or Miami bombed would be for Americans,” Monica Marks, a professor of Middle East politics at New York University Abu Dhabi, told Al Jazeera.

“GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] states have seen this war coming in slow motion for weeks, if not months, and have exerted a huge amount of effort to stop it,” Marks said.

Israel announces ‘offensive campaign against Hezbollah’
The Israeli army’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, made the announcement in a meeting after Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel, according to the country’s military.

“We have launched an offensive campaign against Hezbollah,” he was quoted as saying.

This comes as Lebanese authorities said that Israeli air attacks on the country have so far killed at least 31 people and wounded 149 others.

More on Lebanon casualties
According to a report by Lebanon’s National News Agency, the Israeli air attacks hit the southern suburbs of Beirut and southern Lebanon.

20 people were killed and 91 wounded in the capital’s suburbs;
11 were killed and 58 wounded in the country’s south.
Israel launched attacks in Lebanon after Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack on northern Israel ,widening the ongoing war in the region which started with joint US-Israel attacks on Iran.

Israel also issued forced displacement threats, causing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes in the south.

Two killed in US-Israeli attacks on Iran’s Sanandaj
The Iranian Fars news agency says at least two people have been killed in an “enemy attack” on the central city of Sanandaj.

It said the city was targeted by enemy missiles and that several residential buildings next to the city’s police station were destroyed.

The Tasnim news agency said US and Israeli forces dropped six missiles on different parts of the city, including densely populated neighbourhoods.

Footage posted online and verified by Al Jazeera shows the moment of one attack, with fire and huge clouds of smoke in the sky.