The China Mail - Blasts hit Tehran as US said to be sending more ships, Marines to Mideast

After two weeks of war the Islamic republic has doubled down on defiance, launching drone and missile attacks on neighbours and keeping a stranglehold on the Gulf's Strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices spiking.

Earlier Friday, several of its top surviving officials led a pro-government march in Tehran even as explosions went off, with state media reporting at least one person was killed in a blast nearby.

The demonstrators waved flags and banners reading "Death to America" and "Death to Israel".

At the same time, Iran said it launched missiles at Israel, where strikes were reported on the outskirts of Tel Aviv without causing casualties.

The Islamic republic is intent on showing it will come through the war intact and in control, despite its supreme leader Ali Khamenei being killed at the start of the US-Israeli campaign on February 28.

With Khamenei's son Mojtaba Khamenei named the new supreme leader, but absent from public view and said to be wounded, Washington and Israel appear set on dealing him the same fate.

- Iran still firing -

The US government unveiled a $10-million reward for information about Mojtaba Khamenei's whereabouts, and those of nine other Iranian officials, including the interior minister and the intelligence minister.

US President Donald Trump said on social media Friday that he viewed it "a great honour" to be killing Iran's rulers, calling them "deranged scumbags".

He also said in an interview on Fox News Radio that the United States would be hitting Iran hard "over the next week".

His defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, told a news conference the US military would bombard Iran more heavily on Friday than any other day so far in the war. Israel also said it had launched a fresh wave of strikes at Tehran.

The US, too, appeared to be doubling down, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that it was sending an amphibious assault ship and Marines to the region. CNN reported that the Marines were an Expeditionary Unit, which typically counts 2,500 Marines and sailors.

According to the Pentagon, the US and Israel have struck more than 15,000 targets in Iran over the past two weeks. Israel's military said it conducted 7,600 strikes on the country, most of them against its missile programme.

Yet Iran is still fighting, and its Revolutionary Guards said it was targeting Israel in coordination with Hezbollah, its ally in Lebanon, the south of which has been under sustained Israeli strikes.

Iran also kept up launches of drones and missiles against neighbouring states hosting US military assets.

Saudi Arabia's defence ministry said on Friday its forces had intercepted dozens of drones, while an AFP journalist reported an explosion heard over Dubai that rattled buildings.

Turkey said NATO forces shot down a ballistic missile launched from Iran -- the third such interception in the war.

- Oil worries -

The conflict has sparked chaos in global markets and sent oil prices soaring.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have all but closed the Gulf's strategic Strait of Hormuz through which 20 percent of global oil supplies pass.

Market data showed that the Brent contract price for a barrel of crude has soared more than 42 percent since the war broke out, leaving markets and governments everywhere skittish about the consequences of energy supply and higher inflation. On Friday, oil stayed at over $100 a barrel.

"Every day on the ship, I can see missile launches and hear explosions, making me feel like I was in danger," a sailor stuck on one of the ships unable to pass through the strait, Wang Shang, told AFP.

The US government has said that the US Navy would likely not be able to escort ships through the strait, as Trump had promised, until the end of the month.

- Bread rationed -

Within Iran, the Revolutionary Guards have warned of an even stronger response to any anti-government protests, after ones in January in which several thousand people were killed.

Iranian authorities have maintained an internet blackout since the war started.

Iranians speaking to AFP under cover of anonymity have described a grim picture of cities in ruins and cash running short.

"Bread is now rationed. The population is extremely tense and outraged," one 30-year-old woman in Kermanshah, western Iran, told AFP.

Another woman in the city said "countless" people from Tehran had come to seek refuge from the air strikes, adding to demand for food and scarce medicine, with prices "nearly doubling".

"As a result, locals face serious shortfalls... the situation is extremely tough," she said.

The UN refugee agency has estimated that up to 3.2 million people have been displaced inside Iran since the war started.

Iran's health ministry said on March 8 that more than 1,200 people have been killed, a figure AFP has not been able to verify independently.

The US military has lost 13 personnel since the war started -- including all six members of a refuelling aircraft that crashed in Iraq after an incident officials said was not caused by hostile fire.

In another sign of the war's spread, President Emmanuel Macron announced the death of France's first soldier, in an attack in the Erbil region of Iraq.

The conflict has also battered Lebanon, with authorities reporting at least 773 people killed by Israeli attacks.

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Q.Moore--ThChM