US President Donald Trump encouraged Iranian Kurdish forces in Iraq to launch attacks against Iran as the Middle East conflict widened, with Azerbaijan warning it would retaliate for being targeted by Iranian missiles.
Israel on Friday said it had started a "broad-scale" wave of attacks against infrastructure targets in Tehran, as Gulf cities came under renewed bombardment by Iran.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Iranian forces had targeted the Ramat David airbase and a radar site in Israel, the Al-Adiri camp in Kuwait where US forces are stationed, and a drone attack on a base hosting US troops in Erbil, Iraq.
A Guards spokesperson said new initiatives and weapons would soon be deployed to confront Israeli and US aggression, without giving details.
The seven-day war has now seen Iran target Israel, the Gulf states, Cyprus, Türkiye and Azerbaijan, and spread to the Indian Ocean where a US submarine sank an Iranian naval ship.
"This was an 'existential war' for Iran, leaving us with no choice but to respond wherever American attacks originate from,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh said at the Raisina Dialogues conference in Delhi on Friday.
On the possibility of the Iranian Kurdish forces entering Iran from neighboring Iraq, Trump told Reuters on Thursday: "I think it's wonderful that they want to do that, I'd be all for it."
Two Iranian drone attacks targeted an Iranian opposition camp in Iraqi Kurdistan on Thursday, security sources said.
Iranian Kurdish militias have consulted with the United States about whether, and how, to attack Iran's security forces in the country, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter.
Trump, speaking with Reuters in a telephone interview, also said the United States must have a role in deciding who will be the next leader of Iran after airstrikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei last week.
"We're going to have to choose that person along with Iran. We're going to have to choose that person," he said.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday that the US was not expanding its military objectives in Iran, despite what Trump said about choosing the country's next leader.
"There's no expansion in our objectives. We know exactly what we're trying to achieve," he said. Hegseth said the objectives are to destroy Iran's ballistic missile capabilities and prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
