Iran Fires Fresh Missile Barrage Across Region as Israel Expands Strikes in Lebanon

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has announced new waves of missile strikes under its ongoing retaliatory campaign, Operation True Promise 4, targeting what it described as sensitive American and Zionist positions across the region.

The IRGC said it launched the “37th wave” of the operation late Tuesday night. According to the IRGC, the latest wave “was carried out over more than three hours, with continuous, multi-layered missile strikes, including the heaviest type of missiles.”

During this phase, the IRGC claimed to have struck targets in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, and military centres in Be’er Ya’akov and Tel Aviv.

The strikes were carried out using the Kheibar Shekan, Qadr and Khorramshahr missiles, the statement said.

The Israel Defence Forces said that nearly half of the 300 ballistic missiles launched by Iran at Israel carried cluster bomb warheads.

What are cluster bomb warheads used in the Iran missile attacks on Israel?

The IDF stated that most of the missiles fired on Tuesday were intercepted, but one carrying a large warhead exploded in an open area outside Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem. No injuries were reported.

Cluster bomb warheads indiscriminately spread dozens of sub munitions, each containing several kilograms of explosives, across a radius of around 10 kilometres.

The use of these munitions is banned under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, whose signatories do not include Israel, Iran or the United States.

Iran’s missile attacks in Israel have killed 12 people and wounded more than 2,000, according to Israeli health authorities.

Meanwhile, the IDF said it conducted an additional wave of airstrikes targeting assets and storage facilities of the Hezbollah affiliated Al-Quard Al-Hassan Association in Lebanon.

How did Israel target Hezbollah and its commander amid the Iran–Israel conflict?

The facilities were described as being used to finance the purchase of weapons and the payment of terrorist salaries, part of what Israel called efforts to further degrade Hezbollah’s military capabilities.

The Israeli military also announced the elimination of Hassan Salameh, the commander of Hezbollah’s ‘Nassar’ Unit, in what it described as a precise Israeli Air Force strike in the Jwaya area. The IDF said Salameh had held multiple key positions in the organisation.

Israeli Defence Forces on Tuesday also carried out a combined strike in Tehran and Tabriz.

In a post on X, the IDF said the targets struck included a special units command centre in Tabriz, an “Imam Hassan” security unit military compound in Tehran, a command centre for the security unit responsible for ballistic missile launches and artillery fire, a command centre for the Intelligence and General Security Police in Maragheh Province, and a large Basij forces compound in Tabriz.

Amid the escalating conflict, Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, accused Israel of assassinating four senior Iranian diplomats in Beirut.

Why did Iran accuse Israel of killing its diplomats in Beirut?

In a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the envoy said that on March 8 the Israeli government carried out a targeted strike at the Ramada Hotel in Beirut, killing the diplomats.

Iravani said the officials had been temporarily relocated to the hotel after the IDF publicly threatened to target Iranian representatives in Lebanon.

In his letter, the ambassador alleged that the assassination of the diplomats “while serving as official representatives of a sovereign state in the territory of another sovereign state is a heinous act of terrorism and a grave violation of international law.”

He added that such a “flagrant breach” of the UN Charter and the 1973 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons could not go unpunished.

The developments come amid a rapidly escalating security situation in West Asia.

The conflict has expanded beyond Iran, with Iranian retaliatory strikes using missiles and drones targeting US military bases, embassies and civilian and energy infrastructure in neighbouring Gulf nations including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan.

The escalation has also disrupted global energy supplies, particularly around the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 per cent of the world’s oil transits.

(With inputs from ANI)