Iran’s ex-foreign minister Kharazi ‘gravely wounded’ in attack on his home 

Former Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi has been seriously wounded in an apparent assassination attempt that killed his wife, as United States-Israeli strikes continue to pound Iran for a fifth week.

Iranian media on Thursday reported that Kharazi’s home in Tehran was targeted the previous day in an air strike. The official was hospitalised with serious injuries, according to newspapers Shargh, Etemad and Ham Mihan.

“We have seen what looks like an assassination attempt against the former foreign minister, Kamal Kharazi … We don’t know why he’s been targeted. He has been gravely wounded, and his wife was killed,” said Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Tehran.

Air strikes were reported on Thursday across Iran, including in Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz. Four people were reported killed in Larestan, in southern Iran.

Meanwhile, the ⁠spokesperson of the armed forces’ unified command said Tehran will ⁠press ⁠on with the Middle East war until the US ⁠and Israel face “permanent regret and surrender”, the semiofficial Tasnim ‌news agency reported.

Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesperson of the ⁠Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters, said ⁠US and Israeli assessments ⁠of Iran’s military capabilities were “incomplete” and that Tehran would step up its military actions, ‌with “more crushing, broader and more destructive” attacks in store ‌for ‌its adversaries.

The threat followed comments by US President Donald Trump that Washington would hit Iran “extremely hard” within weeks, although Iran was “essentially decimated” ⁠and the US was on track to achieve its military objectives.

More than 1,340 people have been killed in Iran since the US and Israel launched joint air strikes on February 28. At least 24 people have been killed in Israel, as well as 13 US soldiers in the region.

At least four Israelis were injured in Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv, following an Iranian missile attack late on Wednesday. Israel’s Home Front Command on Thursday issued several warnings of incoming rocket fire, advising the public to take shelter.

Last week, several media reports quoted Kharazi saying that Iran had not shut down all avenues for negotiation and was open to possible indirect talks, even though in an interview with CNN last month, he said he saw “no room for diplomacy” with the US.

“Trump had been deceiving others and not keeping with his promises, and we experienced this in two times of negotiations – that while we were engaged in negotiation, they struck us,” Kharazi told CNN.

Al Jazeera’s Vall, reporting from Tehran, said that while the exact motives for the attempted assassination are unclear, Kharazi was known to be the head of the Strategic Council on Foreign Relations and a former adviser to the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by the US and Israel on the first day of the war.

“The Israelis and the Americans haven’t taken responsibility for this operation, but it is a subject of concern,” Vall said.

“The Iranians have warned that any more assassinations in the country means that they will retaliate against more American interests, particularly tech and AI technology companies and facilities in the region, because they think those companies are helping with the targeted assassinations in Iran.”

In their latest war on Iran, the US and Israeli military have killed Iranian nuclear scientists, as well as senior government figures, including Iranian security official Ali Larijani and the commander of Iran’s internal Basij forces, Gholamreza Soleimani.