07/03/2026 – 10:06 GMT+1
Masoud Pezeshkian also apologised for attacks on neighbouring countries, as fighting escalated with continued US-Israeli strikes on Iran and retaliatory Iranian attacks across Israel and Gulf states.
Iran’s president has rejected the United States’ demand for an unconditional surrender, calling it “a dream they should take to their grave.”
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In a statement on state television, President Masoud Pezeshkian also apologised for Iran’s attacks on “neighbouring countries,” saying that Tehran would halt them and suggesting they were caused by miscommunication in the ranks.
In a post on X, he said mediation efforts between some countries are taking place, but that Iran is prepared to defend its “dignity & sovereignty.”
He blamed the killing of the country’s supreme leader and other top officials for what sounded like a loss of command and control in the armed forces in recent days.
The comments came as intense Iranian fire targeted the Gulf Arab states early on Saturday as Israel and the United States kept up their air strikes targeting the Islamic Republic.
There were attacks reported on Saturday morning in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
US says more intense bombing lies ahead
There is no foreseeable end to the fighting and the Trump administration approved a new $151 million (€129 million) arms sale to Israel after Trump said he would not negotiate with Iran without its “unconditional surrender.”
Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a television interview that the “biggest bombing campaign” of the war was still to come.
Iran’s UN 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.
The US and Israel have battered Iran with strikes, targeting its military capabilities, leadership and nuclear programme. The stated goals and timelines for the war have repeatedly shifted, as the US has at times suggested it seeks to topple Iran’s government or elevate new leadership from within.
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 US troops have been killed.
Iran strikes Gulf States as fighting spreads
In a sign of the widening nature of the conflict, sirens sounded early on 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 US forces.
In Dubai, several blasts were heard Saturday morning and the government said it had activated air defences. 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 €138 a barrel.
The price for a barrel of benchmark US crude rose above €83 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 Centre 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 neighbours.”
On Saturday, the defence 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 defence pact that defines any attack on either nation as an attack on both.
Also early on Saturday, incoming missiles from Iran had people heading to bomb shelters across Israel and loud booms sounded in Jerusalem. There were no immediate reports of casualties by Israel’s emergency services.
