Israel’s defense minister threatened a surge in attacks against Iran on Saturday and Britain condemned Iran for targeting a joint UK-US base in the Indian Ocean as the war in the Middle East entered its fourth week.
The Iranian attack on the Diego Garcia air base — located about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometres) from Iran — suggested Tehran has in its stockpile missiles that can go far further than it had previously acknowledged.
Also on Saturday, Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility was hit in an airstrike, an official Iranian news agency reported, saying there was no radiation leakage.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a video statement that next week, “the intensity of the attacks” by Israel and the United States against Iran’s ruling theocracy will “increase significantly.”
He spoke shortly after fragments from an Iranian missile slammed into an empty kindergarten near Tel Aviv.
Israeli army spokesman Nadav Shoshani posted a video on X of the kindergarten building; no casualties were reported as the place was empty at the time.
Overnight and into the morning, Tehran, Iran’s capital, saw heavy airstrikes, residents said.
In Iraq, a drone struck the intelligence service headquarters in Baghdad, killing an officer. No group immediately claimed responsibility for that attack.
Saudi Arabia said it downed 20 drones in just a couple of hours in the country’s eastern region, home to major oil installations. No injuries or damage were reported.
The attacks — and threats of more to come — indicate the Iran war shows no sign of abating. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Japan’s Kyodo news service on Friday that Iran wanted “not a cease-fire, but a complete, comprehensive and lasting end to the war.”
