Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei
The United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the status of Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, remains unclear, uncertain who is in control.
“We don’t even know he’s in power. I know they say he’s in power. No one has seen him. No one has heard from him. It’s very opaque right now. It’s not quite clear how decisions are being made inside of Iran,” Rubio said in an interview with Al Jazeera.
He expressed confidence that it is a matter of weeks for the war to end, claiming most of Iran’s defence and infrastructure is destroyed.
“We are well on our way to destroying the majority of their arms factories, and we’re well on our way to significantly degrading their missile launchers. When those objectives are achieved, we will have achieved the purpose of this operation, and that’s something that’s not going to take months. That’s a matter of weeks. I’m not going to tell you exactly how many weeks,” he said.
His comments come hours after the US President Donald Trump made yet another threatening statement of mass destruction if a deal to end the war is not reached “shortly.”
“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!) which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched.’,” Trump posted.
“This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran had butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year ‘Reign of Terror.’”
Rubio criticised Tehran’s leadership for prioritising support to armed groups over domestic development. He said resources spent on groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Shia militias in Iraq could have instead been used to address issues like water shortages and economic challenges within Iran.
He added that while the Iranian people are capable and enterprising, it is the policies of the regime that have led to the current situation.
Rubio said Iran’s relentless attacks on its neighbhours has “weakened” the Middle Eastern country.
“If you think about what they struck in the region – what has Iran gone after? It’s been energy infrastructure against countries that were not waging a war against them, but yet they went after these countries nonetheless,” he said.
“This is why they built these missiles and drones in the first place. But they’ve also attacked embassies, diplomatic facilities, which is unheard of. They’ve attacked airports, which is unheard of. This is what they’ve done, and this is a weakened Iran.”
Trump has repeatedly claimed to be making diplomatic progress— though Tehran denies negotiating directly — while ramping up his threats and sending thousands more US troops to the Middle East.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Tehran had received a 15-point proposal from the Trump administration containing “excessive, unrealistic and irrational” demands, while denying there had been any direct talks.
Earlier, Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, dismissed the talks in Pakistan as a cover while more US troops are brought to the region. He said Iranian forces were “waiting for the arrival of American troops on the ground to set them on fire and punish their regional partners forever,” according to state media.
Sirens sounded at dawn near Israel’s main nuclear research centre, a part of the country that has been targeted repeatedly in recent days. Israel’s military also said it had taken out two drones launched from Yemen, where the Iran-backed Houthis entered the war on Saturday with their first missile attack.
Iran kept up the pressure on its Gulf Arab neighbours: Saudi Arabia intercepted five missiles targeting its oil-rich Eastern province; a fireball erupted over Dubai, United Arab Emirates, as a missile was intercepted; and in Kuwait, an Iranian attack hit a power and desalination plant, killing one worker and wounding 10 soldiers, the state-run KUNA news agency reported.
Dubai Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed has approved 1 billion dirhams (Rs 257 crore) as economic support, beginning from April 1, for a period of three to six months.
In an X post, he said the financial aid will enhance the emirate’s economy and enable businesses to navigate current conditions.
With no end to the war, more and more flights are getting cancelled with each passing day. Major Middle Eastern hubs, including Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi, are severely hit.
Below are some of the major international airlines that have cancelled flights or significantly reduced their schedules:
“An Iranian regime that launches ballistic missiles at homes, weaponises global trade and supports proxies is no longer an acceptable feature of the regional landscape,” Noura Al Kaabi, a minister of state at the UAE’s Foreign Ministry, wrote in a column published by the state-linked, English-language newspaper The National.
She added: “We want a guarantee that this will never happen again.”
NATO air defences intercepted a ballistic missile over Turkiye that was fired from Iran, Turkiye’s Defence Ministry said, in the fourth such incident since the start of the war. Iran has denied firing the previous missiles. Turkiye has tried to maintain a neutral position and is taking part in mediation efforts.
Israel launched a new wave of attacks on Iran, saying it was striking “military infrastructure” across Tehran. Explosions were heard in the Iranian capital, and Iranian state media reported a petrochemicals plant in Tabriz, in the north, sustained damage in an airstrike.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, where Israel is battling the Iran-backed Hezbollah, said three peacekeepers have been killed in less than 24 hours. The peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL did not say who was responsible for the deaths overnight and into Monday.
An Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb killed one person and wounded 17, including four children, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military would widen its invasion, expanding the “existing security strip” in southern Lebanon.
In Iran, authorities say more than 1,900 people have been killed, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.
Two dozen people have been killed in the Gulf states and the occupied West Bank. In Lebanon, officials said more than 1,200 people have been killed, and more than 1 million have been displaced.
Six Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon, while 13 US service members have been killed in the war.
An Indian national has been killed in Kuwait in Iranian strikes on a power and water desalination plant, the country’s state-run KUNA news agency reported on Monday.
Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy said a service building at one of its power and water distillation plants was damaged during the attack, according to the report.
Officials described it as a “brutal attack”. The plant where the attack occurred wasn’t identified.
This post was last modified on March 30, 2026 11:26 pm