New Iran leaders want to talk and I have agreed, says Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Iran’s new leadership wants to talk to him and that he has agreed, according to an interview with The Atlantic magazine.

 

“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long,” Trump said in an interview from his Florida residence, the magazine reported.

 

Asked whether his conversation with the Iranians would happen today or tomorrow, Trump responded, “I can’t tell you that.”   "I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important. We are going after the rest - They will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also! In a different attack, we largely destroyed their Naval Headquarters. Other than that, their Navy is doing very well!," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

 

 

Israel launched a new wave of strikes on Tehran on Sunday, saying it aimed to dominate the skies after killing Iran’s supreme leader and leaving the Islamic Republic grappling to rebuild its leadership amid its biggest test in five decades.

 

US and Israeli strikes — and Iranian retaliation — sent shockwaves through sectors from shipping to air travel to oil, amid warnings of rising energy costs and disruption to business in the Gulf, a strategic waterway and global trade hub.

 

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi, told Omani counterpart Badr Albusaidi in a phone call that Tehran is open to any serious efforts at de-escalation, according to a statement by the Oman’s foreign ministry. Oman has been acting as a mediator in nuclear talks between the US and Iran. 

 

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said a leadership council composed of himself, the judiciary head and a member of the powerful Guardians Council had temporarily assumed the duties of Supreme Leader following the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

 

The US military said it had sunk an Iranian ship, while Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had launched an attack on the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln with four ballistic missiles.

 

The Pentagon denied Iran’s claim. “The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn’t even come close,” US Central Command said on X.

 

In a sign of widening turmoil, Israel’s ambulance service said nine people were killed by a missile strike in the town of Beit Shemesh, the UAE said Iranian attacks killed three people and Kuwait reported one dead in Iranian raids.

 

The Israeli military said that over the past day Israeli planes had conducted strikes to open the “path to Tehran”, and the majority of aerial defence systems in western and central Iran had been dismantled. It added: “Ali Khamenei was targeted in a precise, large-scale operation carried out by the Israeli Air Force, guided by accurate IDF intelligence, while he was in his central leadership compound in the heart of Tehran, where he was together with additional senior officials”.

 

Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said many targets remained, including sites of military-industrial production. “We have the capabilities and the targets to keep going on for as long as necessary.” 

 

Asked if Israel was considering deploying ground forces, Shoshani said that was not under consideration.

 

Inside Iran, some grieved for Khamenei while others celebrated his death, exposing a deep fault line in a country stunned by the sudden demise of the man who ruled for decades. 

Firepower on display

 

US & Israel

 

• Tomahawk: Sea-launched cruise missile; low-altitude flight; 1,600+ km range
• F-35I ‘Adir’: Customised stealth fighter; sensor fusion, electronic warfare; deep-striker 
• F-15I ‘Ra’am’: Long-range strike jet; heavy bomb and missile payloads; fortified targets
• Delilah / Rampage: Air-launched stand-off missiles; fired outside air-defence range; Delilah loiters; Rampage for hardened sites
• SPICE: Guidance kit converting unguided bombs; electro-optical targeting; works in GPS-denied conditions
• JDAM: GPS/inertial guidance kit; turns bombs into all-weather precision munitions
• GBU-28: 5,000-lb laser-guided penetrator; designed for deeply buried bunkers
• Heron/Eitan: Long-endurance drones; surveillance, intelligence, precision strike

 

Iran

 

• Shahab-3: Liquid-fuelled, road-mobile medium-range ballistic missile; Israel-range capability
• Emad: Precision-guided ballistic missile; terminal guidance for higher accuracy
• Ghadr: Extended-range Shahab-3 variant; improved accuracy and mobility

 

How succession works in Iran 

 

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera that a new supreme leader will be chosen in “one or two days.” Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian also said a new leadership council “has begun its work.” Meanwhile, Senior Shia cleric Ayatollah Alireza Arafi has been appointed to serve as the interim Supreme Leader of Iran, Iranian state media reported on Sunday

 

A clerical council selects a new supreme leader 

 

• An 88-member panel — Assembly of Experts—  appoints the supreme leader
• It consists entirely of Shiite clerics who are elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran's constitutional watchdog

 

Temporary leadership council 

 

• A leadership council can “temporarily assume all the duties of leadership” 
• It consits of the president, the head of the judiciary, and a member of the Guardian Council

 

Khamenei's son a possible contender 

 

• One of Khamenei’s sons, Mojtaba (inset picture) , a 56-year-old Shiite cleric, is a potential candidate, though he has never held government office
• But a father-to-son transfer in the case of a supreme leader could spark anger, not only among Iranians already critical of clerical rule, but also among supporters of the system