Iran's president defies US demands while apologizing for strikes on neighbors

Audio By Carbonatix

Beirut (AP) — Lebanese health officials said Saturday that Israeli airstrikes killed at least 16 people killed and wounded 35 others in overnight Israeli airstrikes in mountain town of Nabi Chit.

The Lebanese Health Ministry offered the figure.

The Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with an Israeli force that landed late Friday there in the mountains of eastern Lebanon.

Israel has yet to comment on the fighting there.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s president said Saturday that a demand by the United States for an unconditional surrender is a “dream that they should to take to their grave.”

President Masoud Pezeshkian made the statement in a prerecorded address aired by state television.

He also apologized for Iran’s attacks on regional countries, insisting that Tehran would halt them and suggesting they were caused by miscommunication in the ranks.

The comments came as intense Iranian fire targeted the Gulf Arab states early Saturday as Israel and the United States kept up their airstrikes targeting the Islamic Republic. There were repeated attacks Saturday morning on Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

There was no foreseeable end to the fighting. U.S. President Donald 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.

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. Also early Saturday, loud booms sounded in Jerusalem and incoming missiles from Iran had people heading to bomb shelters across Israel.

There were no immediate reports of casualties by Israel’s emergency services.

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.

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."

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.”

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 have signed a mutual defense pact that defines any attack on either nation as an attack on both.

Russia has provided Iran with information that could help Tehran strike American warships, aircraft and other assets in the region, according to two officials familiar with U.S. intelligence on the matter.

The people, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that the U.S. intelligence has not uncovered that Russia is directing Iran on what to do with the information.

Still, it’s the first indication that Moscow has sought to get involved in the war.

In a social media post Friday, Trump said “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!" After a surrender, “and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s),” he wrote, the U.S. and its allies will help rebuild Iran, making it “economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”

Those comments were likely to raise further questions about the endgame of the war. The fighting has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 200 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six U.S. troops have been killed.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on social media that “some countries” had begun mediation efforts, without elaborating.

Iranian state television reported Friday that a leadership council had started discussing how to convene the country’s Assembly of Experts, which will select the new supreme leader.

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.

Israel has said that over the past week it has heavily bombed an extensive underground bunker that Iranian leaders had planned to use during the hostilities.

New information surfaced suggesting that a deadly Feb. 28 explosion at a school in the Iranian city of Minab, some 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) southeast of Tehran, was likely caused by U.S. airstrikes. The information included satellite images, expert analysis, a U.S. official and public information released by U.S. and Israeli military forces.

Iranian state media has said more than 165 people were killed in the blast, most of them of children.

Iran has blamed Israel and the U.S. for the explosion. Neither country has accepted responsibility, though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the U.S. is investigating.

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 at least three people were killed.

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 said at least 217 people have been killed by Israeli strikes since Monday and 798 wounded.

Roads in the Lebanese capital were choked with evacuating traffic as smoke rose over the city’s southern districts. Two hospitals evacuated patients and staff.

“What can we do? We prayed here under the tree. During the night, we slept in the car because there is no place to stay,” Jihan Shehadeh, one of the tens of thousands of displaced, said.

___

Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank, Rising from Bangkok and Abou AlJoud from Beirut. Associated Press journalists around the world contributed.