Drones launched by Israel targeted checkpoints in Tehran on Wednesday and were tracked by Iran’s air defenses, IRGC-affiliated Fars News reported.
Fars said unconfirmed reports indicated one of the drones failed during an operation in northeast Tehran.
The drones were aimed at disrupting security measures in the city, including neighborhood checkpoints, the report added.
Iran’s state media has moved quickly to frame the leadership transition not as a rupture but as proof of institutional resilience, shifting its messaging from wartime urgency to carefully managed continuity.
Following the death of Ali Khamenei and the elevation of Mojtaba Khamenei, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) emphasized that the state—not any individual—is the true source of stability.
IRIB’s rolling news channel, IRINN, repeatedly declared: “The Islamic Republic of Iran is not dependent on a single individual. It is a system based on the rule of law and divine values.”
After the Assembly of Experts named Mojtaba leader on March 9, state television pivoted to stressing the decisiveness of the vote.
Despite reports of clerical unease about the process, IRIB described the outcome as reflecting an 85 percent consensus and presented it as both legally sound and religiously sanctioned.
Broadcasts featured pledges of allegiance from the Revolutionary Guards, the military, the diplomatic corps and even the national football team as evidence of unified support.
Because the transition unfolded during an active conflict with Israel and the United States, state television fused the succession narrative with imagery of military strength.
Shortly after Mojtaba’s appointment, IRIB aired footage of missile launches toward Israel under the caption: “At your command, Sayyid Mojtaba,” invoking both his lineage and his role as wartime commander-in-chief.
The messaging aligned with broader official rhetoric, with security chief Ali Larijani and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf both rejecting calls for a ceasefire and signaling that Iran would continue strikes.
These narratives circulated even as Mojtaba himself remained absent from public view. His silence fueled speculation about his condition, with some commentators drawing religious analogies to the occultation of the 12th Imam, while others circulated unverified claims about his whereabouts.
At home, the messaging has been accompanied by tighter control. Iran’s police chief warned that anyone taking to the streets after encouragement from US and Israeli leaders would be treated as an “enemy” rather than a civilian protester—a signal that the space for dissent is narrowing further under wartime conditions.
References to dissent or worsening economic conditions have meanwhile largely disappeared from state coverage.
Skepticism about the hereditary nature of the succession has been framed as foreign psychological warfare, while relatively small pro-government gatherings are presented as signs of broad public enthusiasm.
For now, the message is clear: continuity over disruption, system over individual. But the carefully managed narrative also reflects the pressures facing the leadership at a moment of unusual uncertainty.
All ports and docks in the region would become legitimate targets if Iran’s ports and docks are threatened, a senior spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces told state media on Wednesday.
“I deny the CENTCOM (US Central Command) statement claiming that naval vessels of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have hidden in commercial ports,” Abolfazl Shekarchi added.
Earlier in the day, CENTCOM said that Iran was using civilian ports along the Strait of Hormuz to conduct military operations that threaten international shipping.
CENTCOM warned Iranian dockworkers, administrative personnel and commercial vessel crews to avoid Iranian naval vessels and military equipment.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said capping oil prices would help limit Russia’s revenues and warned that now was not the time to ease sanctions, after joining a call with G7 leaders on the Iran war’s impact on oil and gas markets.
“This is not the moment to relax sanctions on Russia,” she wrote on X.
Von der Leyen added that she and European Council President Antonio Costa stressed the need to keep energy flows moving, particularly through the Strait of Hormuz, and backed the International Energy Agency’s decision to release 400 million barrels of oil.
Iran has deployed about a dozen naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reported Wednesday citing two sources familiar with the matter.
One source said the locations of most of the mines were known but declined to say how the United States planned to address them. CNN first reported the mining of the strait on Tuesday.
Exports through the chokepoint along Iran’s coast have effectively halted since the war launched 12 days ago by the United States and Israel, helping drive a surge in global energy prices. Iran’s military command said Wednesday the world should be prepared for oil to hit $200 a barrel.
UNESCO has warned that intensifying hostilities are already damaging cultural landmarks in Iran and the broader region, saying it has communicated with all parties to the conflict to coordinate protections for heritage sites.
“We are deeply concerned by the first impact that the hostilities are already having in the many World Heritage sites, for instance in Iran, where already four World Heritage sites have suffered from the consequence of the hostilities,” Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the agency’s World Heritage Centre, said in an interview.
The organization said it was continuing to assess damage and urged restraint as fighting escalates.
President Donald Trump wrote on social media this week that the United States would “take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again.”
The comments were widely interpreted as a threat against infrastructure and other soft targets.
Iran is home to 29 UNESCO World Heritage sites. Assomo said early assessments confirmed damage to four of them, though the full extent remains unclear.
“We don’t know the extent for the moment because we need to continue to check and verify,” he said. “But clearly, with the images that we have been able to receive, we can confirm the damage.”
Golestan Palace: 'Iranian Versailles'
Among the affected sites is Tehran’s Golestan Palace, which Assomo described as “a very important and outstanding palace” reflecting “the grandeur of Iran’s civilization in the 19th century.”
He noted its elaborate decorative features, including mirrored glasswork, and said it is sometimes compared with the Palace of Versailles in France.
The palace served as the Qajar dynasty’s royal residence and seat of power and illustrates the introduction of European styles into Persian arts. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s last monarch, held his coronation ceremony there in 1969.
Video images circulating online appear to show damage inside the palace, with piles of shattered glass, broken woodwork and debris scattered across its interior.
Elsewhere in Iran, Isfahan—once one of Central Asia’s most important cities and a major Silk Road hub—is home to the Masjed-e Jame, a mosque more than 1,000 years old that reflects the evolution of Islamic architecture across 12 centuries.
Assomo said UNESCO was also concerned about broader risks to cultural heritage across the region.
“Everything that tells the history of all the civilization of the 18 countries in the region—we’re talking about Iran but there are many, many others even in the Gulf countries—and we are calling for the protection of all of the sites and their importance,” he said.
