Trump wants role in picking Khamenei successor

President Trump told Reuters that he would support Kurdish armed groups stationed in the mountainous Iran-Iraq border region to go on a ground offensive.

“I think it’s wonderful that they want to do that, I’d be all for it,” he said.

A coalition of various Kurdish opposition groups from Iran has been in contact with the US about an offensive to attack Western Iran following the weakening of the Iranian military, according to Reuters.

Kurds are split between Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. It’s only in Iraq, where they now enjoy de facto autonomy, that they are not subject to government repression.

Syrian Kurds were key US allies in the fight against so-called “Islamic State,” but lost the backing of Washington after former Islamist fighter Ahmed al-Sharaa became the president of Syria.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the US has requested Ukrainian support in defending against Iranian drones in the Middle East.

Forces in Ukraine have experience with the so-called “Shahed” drones that are used by Russia to attack military and civilian targets.

“I gave instructions to provide the necessary means and ensure the presence of Ukrainian specialists who can guarantee the required security,” the Ukrainian president said in a post on X.

“Ukraine helps partners who help ensure our security and protect the lives of our people,” he added.

President Donald Trump told US outlet Axios on Thursday that he should have a role in picking the next leader of Iran after Ayatollah Khamenei was killed in strikes early on Saturday.

But he ruled out Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who is seen as a favorite contender among the remaining members of the regime.

“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Trump said.

“Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy,” he said in reference to Delcy Rodriguez who took over as interim president of Venezuela after US forces kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro.

Trump also told Reuters: “We want to be involved in the process of choosing ​the person who is going to lead Iran into the future.”

“We don’t have to go ​back every five years and do this again and again.”

According to the institutions of the Iranian regime, Khamenei’s successor must be picked by a group of senior Shiite clerics. It’s not clear how Trump planned to influence that decision, but his comments have been seen as a sign he would be willing to work with a regime insider.

However, Israel has said that it would assassinate any successor chosen by the regime.

The 208 crew members of an Iranian naval ship that arrived in Sri Lankan waters on Thursday were evacuated by Sri Lankan authorities, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said.

He said the Sri Lankan navy would take control of the ship and move it to the port of Trincomalee for protection.

The announcement comes a day after the US confirmed it had sunk an Iranian frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the country was drawn into the conflict on Monday have killed 102 people, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Thursday.

Some 638 more were also wounded since Monday, the ministry added.

The Health Ministry warned that tolls were likely to increase.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been forced to suspend operations at its emergency logistics hub in Dubai due to the threat of strikes.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday that the impact of the suspension of operations “goes beyond the immediately affected countries,” as the hub is responsible for global health emergencies.

Hanan Balkhy, the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean regional director, said the Dubai hub had processed 500 emergency orders for 75 countries last year.

She explained that the war was “preventing access to $18 million (€15.5 million) in humanitarian health supplies while another $8 million in shipments cannot reach the hub.”

The suspension has affected 50 emergency supply requests from 25 countries. It was also impacting some $6 million in medicines destined for the Gaza Strip.

Balkhy said that Afghanistan and Pakistan could be impacted by a hold-up of $1.6 million in polio laboratory supplies. Polio is endemic in those two countries.

The United Kingdom is sending four additional Typhoon jets to Qatar, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday.

The fighter planes will join an existing UK squadron in the Gulf state “to strengthen our defensive operations in Qatar and across the region”, Starmer told a news conference. 

Starmer stressed Britain had the right plan and had already been pre-deploying military equipment across the region even before the start of the latest conflict. 

“My focus is providing calm, level headed leadership in the national interest,” Starmer said. “That means ⁠deploying ​our military and diplomatic strength to ​protect our people, and it means having the strength to ​stand firm by our ‌values and our principles, no matter the pressure to do otherwise.”

A key energy provider, Qatar has continued to face Iranian strikes since the conflict erupted on Saturday.

Some 20,000 seafarers and around 15,000 cruise ship passengers are stuck in the Persian Gulf amid the Middle East war triggered by the US-Israeli offensive against Iran, the French AFP newspaper has said, citing the UN’s International Maritime Organization.  

The IMO’s secretary-general, Arsenio Dominguez, told AFP that his agency “is ready to work with all stakeholders to help ensure the safety and well-being of the seafarers affected.”

His remarks came as Greek seafarers began a 24-hour strike affecting local ferry services in protest at the stranding of crews in the Gulf amid the war.

They have also called for the area to be declared a war risk zone to enable their repatriation.

Azerbaijan‘s President Ilham Aliyev has accused Iran of “terrorism” and said his country would retaliate after drone attacks on Azerbaijani territory that injured four people

“Today a terrorist act was carried out from the Iranian side against the territory of Azerbaijan,” Aliyev told a security council meeting.

He said that the military had “been instructed to prepare and carry out retaliatory measures.”

Armed forces had been “placed on mobilization level number one, and must be ready to conduct any operation,” he added.

Earlier in the day, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry blamed Iran for an incident in which two drones hit an airport building and near a school in Nakhchivan Automous Republic, an exclave located near the Iranian border and separated from the main part of Azerbaijan by Armenia.      

France, Italy and Greece have agreed to “coordinate the dispatch of military assets” to Cyprus, news agencies AFP and Reuters cited an unnamed French presidency source as saying.

French President Emmanuel Macron had called the prime ministers of Italy and Greece, Giorgia Meloni and Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the French AFP news agency cited a member of Macron’s team as saying.

“They agreed to coordinate the dispatch of military assets to Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean and to work together to guarantee freedom of navigation in the Red Sea,” the source was quoted as saying.

France is allowing US aircraft not involved in the ongoing attacks on Iran temporary access to its bases.

“Considering the ‌context, France demanded ‌that ​the concerned resources do not participate in any ​way in operations conducted by the ⁠United ​States ​in Iran but ​strictly for ‌the support of the defense ​of ⁠our partners in the ⁠region,” ​the official said.

The UK had initially held back on letting the US use any of its bases to launch attacks on Iran, fearing the attacks were illegal. But Prime Minister Keir Starmer changed course later on Sunday.

Spain has, meanwhile, categorically rejected any US requests to use jointly operated naval and air bases in the southern regions of the country for launching attacks on Iran.

Iranian frigate IRIS Dena was returning from India’s biannual MILAN-2026 naval exercise when it was attacked and sunk by a US submarine torpedo near Sri Lanka. DW’s Nimisha Jaiswal has the latest. 

A ​spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry has told Spanish ​broadcaster TVE that EU countries will “pay the price, sooner ‌of ⁠later” ⁠if they do not speak out against the US-Israeli offensive against Iran.

Esmaeil ⁠Baqaei ​also ​reiterated Tehran’s ​denials that ‌a missile intercepted in ​Turkish ⁠airspace was launched ⁠from ​Iran.

Tehran and many experts across the world consider the offensive to be a violation of international law, a view also expressed recently by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who has been the only EU leader to speak out openly against the US-Israeli campaign.

Sanchez, who has raised the ire of US President Donald Trump by refusing to allow bases in his country to be used to launch attacks on Iran, doubled down on his critical remarks on Wednesday, saying that international law, “which protects all of us, especially the civilian population,” was at stake.
 

Iran’s armed forces said it did not send drones into Azebaijani territory on Thursday, according to Iranian state media, contradicting earlier statements by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. 

“Azerbaijan reserves the right to take appropriate retaliatory measures,” it added, saying the “attacks would not go unanswered.”

The ministry had said “Azerbaijan reserves the right to take appropriate retaliatory measures,” after two Iranian drones allegedly flew into the exclave of Nakhchivan, injuring four people. Nakhchivan borders on Iran’s north. 

Relations between Azerbaijan and Iran are already tense owing to Baku’s close ties with Israel and Turkey, with Tehran having long voiced concern that Azerbaijan could be used by Israel to stage attacks on it.

Israel‘s Defense Minister Israel Katz has said his US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has urged him to continue the Israeli military campaign against Iran “to the end” in an overnight conversation.

“The secretary of defense said: ‘Keep going to the end — we are with you,'” Katz said, according to a statement released by his ministry on Thursday.

This comes as the Israeli military claims that Iran’s clerical regime has already been “shaken” by its strikes on the Islamic Republic.

“And every day we continue to destabilize it more and more, to deepen the damage to it until the existential threat is removed,” military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said in a televised briefing.

The remarks come as Iran continues to strike back at Israel, with its army quoted by state TV as saying on Thursday it had attacked the country with drones on Thursday, hitting “targets in Tel Aviv as well as Meron radar base.”

Several Iranian missiles were also detected by Israel on Thursday, triggering siren alarms across the Tel Aviv area, while media said Jerusalem was also threatened by the strikes.

However, there has reportedly been a decline in Iranian rocket attacks.