Iran’s new supreme leader is injured, hiding in a bunker and likely disfigured, says US war secretary

Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader, during a rally in Tehran, Iran, on May 31, 2019 Hamid Forootan/ISNA/WANA via Reuters US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on Friday (13) that Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is injured and “probably disfigured”, and said that the leadership of the Iranian regime is hiding in bunkers in civilian areas, “like rats”. ✅ Follow the g1 international news channel on WhatsApp At a press conference at the Pentagon, Hegseth stated that Iran’s leadership is desperate, with its military capabilities increasingly weakened and subjugated by the US in the war. “Not only does Iran no longer have a functional air force, its Navy is at the bottom of the Persian Gulf and its missile capabilities are dwindling. The Iranian leadership’s situation is no better: Desperate, they have gone underground to hide. That’s what rats do. We hear that their ‘not-so’ supreme leader is injured and probably disfigured,” Hegseth said. The US Secretary of War pointed to the fact that neither Khamenei’s voice nor image appeared in his first address to the nation, read on Iranian state TV on Thursday. See the videos that are trending on g1 “It was a weak statement, without voice or video. He called for unity after killing tens of thousands of protesters. Iran has plenty of cameras and microphones, why a written statement? I think you know why. (…) He is scared, hurt and in hiding, and has no legitimacy. The situation is a mess. Who is in charge? Not even Iran knows”, added Hegseth in reference to Mojtaba Khamenei. Khamenei said on Thursday that Iran will continue attacks on US bases in the Middle East and that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed, contrary to expectations of surrender fueled by Donald Trump. A high-ranking Iranian official told the AFP news agency, however, that Tehran would let ships from some countries pass through the site, but without specifying which ones. Hegseth, in turn, stated that the US “has options” in the Strait of Hormuz and guaranteed that the Army was prepared for everything Iran is doing in the region. The Trump administration is considering mobilizing warships to escort oil tankers to sail through the strait without being hit by an Iranian attack, but US officials admitted that it is “not yet” possible to mobilize such an operation now — the situation could change by the end of the month. “They [Irã] are demonstrating pure desperation in the Strait of Hormuz. We are dealing with it, there is nothing to worry about”, said Hegseth. On the subject, the Secretary of War took the opportunity to criticize the US press for its coverage of the war: he denied that the conflict is expanding and that the Iranians were surprising with their retaliation against countries in the Middle East and in the Strait of Hormuz. War US x Iran Pete Hegseth once again said that the US is winning the conflict against Iran and that they are “decimating” Iranian military capabilities with bombings. He promised a renewal of the record of air strikes against Iranian territory this Friday. “Iran has no air defenses, Air Force or Navy. But it is very important that Iran does not have the ability to rebuild [sua indústria militar]. Soon, all of Iran’s defense companies will be destroyed, both the headquarters of weapons producers and assembly sites,” he said. General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, however, was more restrained than Hegseth. He admitted to the press that Iran still has the military power to fight the war. “Iran still has the capacity to harm friendly forces and commercial shipping,” he said. Even so, the volume of missiles fired by Tehran has decreased 90% and that of attack drones, 95% in relation to numbers recorded at the beginning of the conflict, according to Hegseth.

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