By Gram Slattery and Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, Oct 6 (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that nobody knew who was running Iran during the US-Israeli war with Iran, now in its eighth month.
QUOTES AND DETAILS:
• “Their leaders are gone, their second group of leaders are gone, and the biggest problem I have is nobody knows who the hell is running the country,” Trump said.
• Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday Washington knows very well who their counterpart is in Iran and how the decision-making system in Iran works.
• “The problem is actually the opposite: it lies in the contradictory positions and mixed messaging from US officials,” Esmaeil Baghaei said in a news conference.
• Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the US-Israeli war on Iran, which began on February 28. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeded him but has not been seen in public since he was injured in the same strike that killed his father.
• Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases.
• US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions.
• Fuel prices that have risen in response to the war are also a risk to Trump’s Republican Party ahead of the November US midterm elections in which control of Congress is at stake.
• Trump, whose approval rating has held at a record low amid concerns of high cost of living spurred by soaring gasoline and diesel prices, has offered shifting timelines and goals for the war.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery, Kanishka Singh and Nandita Bose in Washington; editing by Michelle Nichols)
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