DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran's president apologized Saturday for attacks on regional countries even as its missiles and drones flew toward Gulf Arab states, suggesting Tehran's political leadership could not exercise full command over the Islamic Republic's armed forces, and rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated demands for surrender.
President Masoud Pezeshkian, one member of a tripartite leadership council overseeing Iran since a Feb. 28 airstrike started the war and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered the defiant message exactly one week into a conflict that has spread across the region, rattled global markets and air travel and left Iran’s own leadership greatly weakened by hundreds of Israeli and American airstrikes.
The message, seemingly filmed in a hurry without professional broadcast equipment, again underlined the limited powers being exercised by the theocracy's leaders over its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which controls the ballistic missiles targeting Israel and others, answered only to Khamenei and appears to be picking its own targets as the conflict widens.
While the Iranian president attempted to assuage growing Gulf Arab anger over the attacks, just hours before a wave of missiles and drones disrupted flights at Dubai International Airport, targeting a major Saudi oil facility and sending people fleeing for cover multiple times in Bahrain.
Pezeshkian also kept up his criticism of Trump's call for Iran to unconditionally surrender to America.
“That's a dream that they should take to their grave," he said.
Miscommunication among Iran’s ranks
Pezeshkian’s statement Saturday said the country’s three-man leadership council had been in touch with the armed forces over the attacks.
“I should apologize to the neighboring countries that were attacked by Iran, on my own behalf,” the president said. “From now on, they should not attack neighboring countries or fire missiles at them, unless we are attacked by those countries. I think we should solve this through diplomacy.”
Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, Iran’s armed forces spokesman, then added more confusion by saying after Pezeshkian that Tehran has “not hit countries that did not provide space for America to invade our country.”
The American strikes haven’t been coming from the Gulf Arab states now under attack.
US says more intense bombing lies ahead
There was no foreseeable end to the fighting. Trump's administration approved a new $151 million arms sale to Israel after Trump said he would not negotiate with Iran without its "unconditional surrender" and U.S. officials warned of a forthcoming bombing campaign they said would be the most intense yet in the weeklong conflict.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a television interview on Friday that the “biggest bombing campaign” of the war was still to come.
Iran's U.N. ambassador said the country would “take all necessary measures” to defend itself.
Associated Press video showed explosions flashing and smoke rising over western Tehran as Israel said it had begun a broad wave of strikes.
The U.S. and Israel have battered Iran with strikes, targeting its military capabilities, leadership and nuclear program. The stated goals and timelines for the war have repeatedly shifted, as the U.S. has at times suggested it seeks to topple Iran's government or elevate new leadership from within.
The fighting has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 200 in Lebanon and 11 in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six U.S. troops have been killed.
Iran strikes Gulf States as fighting spreads
In a sign of the widening nature of the conflict, sirens sounded early Saturday in Bahrain as Iranian attacks targeted the island kingdom. And Saudi Arabia said it destroyed drones headed toward its vast Shaybah oil field and shot down a ballistic missile launched toward Prince Sultan Air Base, which hosts U.S. forces.
In Dubai, several blasts were heard Saturday morning and the government said it had activated air defenses. Passengers waiting for flights out at Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, found themselves ushered down into train tunnels at the sprawling airfield after the alert sounded.
Later that morning, long-haul carrier Emirates said that ”all flights to and from Dubai have been suspended until further notice."
Shortly after, the decision was reversed and the Emirates said the airline would resume operations. The news brought cheers in Dubai International Airport, where passengers had been sheltering after hearing a large boom overhead. Authorities have not explained if there was an interception or damage at the airport, which is the world’s busiest for international travel.
Iranian naval vessel docked in India
The Indian foreign minister said Saturday an Iranian naval vessel has docked in India.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the IRIS Lavan was moored in the southern city of Kochi after India granted permission when the vessel reported “having problems” on March 1. News agency Press Trust of India, citing unnamed “government sources,” had earlier reported that the ship has been in Kochi since March 4.
“I think it was the humane thing to do,” Jaishankar said.
A U.S. submarine sank the Iranian warship IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka on Wednesday. Another Iranian vessel, the IRIS Bushehr, requested assistance from Sri Lanka, where more than 200 sailors were being brought ashore.
The ships had previously taken part in naval exercises hosted by India, but Jaishankar said they got “caught on the wrong side of events” once the war began.
Qatar warns that war can ‘bring down economies’
Qatar’s energy minister, Saad al-Kaabi, warned in an interview with the Financial Times that the war could “bring down the economies of the world,” predicting a widespread shutdown of Gulf energy exports that could send oil to $150 a barrel.
The price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose above $90 on Friday for the first time in more than two years.
Writing for the Qatar-funded satellite news network Al Jazeera, a regional analyst warned Iran was making “a strategic miscalculation of historic proportions.” Al Jazeera, a Pan-Arab satellite news network owned and funded by Qatar’s government, has been used in the past to signal Doha’s opinions on regional matters.
Sultan al-Khulaifi, a senior researcher at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, wrote: "By spreading the conflict to the Gulf, Tehran is doing precisely what Israel could not do alone: steering the war away from the Israeli-Iranian axis and transforming it into a confrontation between Iran and its Arab neighbors.”
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan discuss how to stop Iranian attacks
On Saturday, the defense minister of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’s army chief met to discuss ways to stop the attacks coming from Iran, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported.
Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman, a son of King Salman, talked with Field Marshal Asim Munir in Riyadh about the Iranian attacks. Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan had signed a mutual defense pact that defines any attack on either nation as an attack on both.
Also, early Saturday, incoming missiles from Iran had people heading to bomb shelters across Israel and loud booms sounded in Jerusalem. There were no immediate reports of casualties by Israel’s emergency services.
Fighting with Israeli troops reported in eastern Lebanon
The Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with an Israeli force that landed late Friday in the mountains of eastern Lebanon.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said Saturday that at least 16 people were killed in subsequent Israeli strikes and another 35 were wounded.
Israel did not acknowledge the fighting, and its military did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Israel has carried out waves of airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah has a large presence, but which is also home to hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry says over 200 people have been killed by Israeli strikes since Monday and over 800 wounded.
___
Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel and Magdy from Cairo, Egypt