Israel hits Iran prison as succession plan in works
Israel struck Evin prison in northern Tehran on Monday, a potent symbol of Iran’s governing system, in what Israel called its most intense bombing yet of the Iranian capital a day after the United States joined the war.
US President Donald Trump openly mused about overthrowing Ayatollah’s Islamist regime.
Oil prices barely budged on the first trading day after the US joined the war, suggesting traders doubted Iran would follow through on threats to disrupt oil supplies from the Gulf.
Iran’s IRIB state broadcaster released video showing rescue workers combing flattened wreckage of Evin prison, carrying a wounded man on a stretcher. Iran’s judiciary said urgent action was being taken to protect the health and safety of inmates.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar posted a video on X showing an explosion at a building with a sign identifying it as an entrance to the prison.
“Viva la libertad!” Saar wrote.
Evin has been the primary prison for housing political detainees and security prisoners, notably since Iran’s 1979 revolution, and the site of executions that remain potent symbols for the opposition. It is where several high-profile foreign prisoners are also held.
Israel’s military said Israel had also struck Revolutionary Guard command centres responsible for internal security in the Tehran area.
“The IDF is currently striking, with unprecedented force, regime targets and governmental repression bodies in the heart of Tehran,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
Iran’s student news network reported that Shahid Beheshti University, one of the main universities in Tehran, had also been hit. The university’s public relations office denied it.
“Mr Trump, the gambler, you may start this war, but we will be the ones to end it,” Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya central military headquarters, said on Monday in English in a recorded video statement.
Trump spoke of toppling the hardline clerical rulers who have been Washington’s principal foes in the region since Iran’s 1979 revolution.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn’t there be a regime change??? MIGA!!!” he wrote.
UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said, US bombing probably caused “very significant” damage to the underground areas of Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment plant dug into a mountain, though no one can yet tell the extent.
Five insiders with knowledge of the discussions said efforts had been ramped up to anoint a successor for Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader Ali Khamenei, with Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, 56, and Hassan Khomeini, 53, grandson of the founder of the revolution Ruhollah Khomeini, now seen as the two frontrunners.
The younger Khomeini, an ally of reformists who commands respect of hardliners because of his lineage, has come into the frame as a serious candidate this month because he could represent a more conciliatory choice internationally and domestically than Mojtaba Khamenei, the five people said.
Iran’s most effective threat to hurt the West would be to restrict global oil flows from the Gulf, but oil prices have not shot up to crisis levels. After briefly jumping above $80 a barrel at the open, Brent crude futures were 0.29%, at $76.79 in noon.
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