Iran attacked afresh despite negotiations

Sheri Laizer | iKurd.net

On February 28, 2026, the US and Israeli war machine once again attacked numerous strategic locations in Iran despite parties to the talks on Iran’s nuclear capability having just declared a potential breakthrough. 1 The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, aged 86, was assassinated in his compound in a joint US-Israeli assault using CIA strategic locations intelligence.

Israel claimed to have deployed 200 jet fighters targeting 500 objectives. Former US President, Bill Clinton described it as an ‘earthquake’ stressing that earthquakes have aftershocks and that he was critical of the process that led to war without the informed consent of the American people. 2

Several top Iranian military figures including the IRGC commander in chief, Mohammad Pakpour and Khamenei’s advisor, Ali Shamkhani, were also killed. ‘Collateral damage’ included 108 people at a girl’s school situated close to an IRGC base. According to Iran’s Red Crescent, more than 200 other fatalities were sustained with some 750 people initially injured at various locations. It was not over…

Banners and billboards with black backgrounds went up across Iran, Baghdad, and Shi’a areas of Lebanon as Khamenei’s martyrdom was confirmed on Sunday. Enraged Shi’a demonstrators in Baghdad advanced towards the US Embassy shouting slogans against Israel and the United States.

Waving Iranian and militia flags and trying to storm the fortifications several met with tear gas and stun grenades fired by the security services. As violent clashes increased, pro-Iran actors opened fire, trying to break into the Green Zone in the evening from the direction of the 14th of July Bridge across the Tigris.

The US-Israeli side also attacked PMF and Kata’ib Hezbollah positions inside Iraq at Qaim in Anbar province and Jurf al-Sakhar in Babel leaving two dead and five wounded. Roads to Baghdad were closed and a maximum-security alert was rapidly put into place. 3

To Shi’a believers, Ali Khamenei had attained the highest reward; martyrdom that guaranteed him an exalted place in the Shi’a pantheon, immortalised in the paradise of the Believers.

As Iran retaliated, striking Israel, and 27 US bases including in the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, Jordan, and across the Arab princedoms -, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Dubai, people anxiously scoured the skies.

Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, declared a forty-day mourning period saying: “This great crime will never remain unanswered and will turn a new page in the history of the Islamic world and Shiism…”

Iraq under its pro-Iran caretaker government proclaimed a three-day mourning period. The Coordination Front’s chosen candidate for its next premier remained the divisive figure, former PM Nouri al-Maliki, of the State of Law Coalition lead by al-Da’wa. Although rebuffed by Trump, al-Maliki continued to wait in the wings refusing to withdraw under US pressure.

As the violent conflagration spread across the region, ‘Where, and who, would be next?’ was the question alight in so many eyes.

Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a senior contributing writer for iKurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.

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