A mourner holds a picture of Iran’s new supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei while marching with others during the funeral ceremony for Iran’s slain intelligence minister Esmail Khatib and his family after the weekly Friday Muslim noon prayers in Tehran on March 20, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AFP
Iran’s Supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said on Friday (March 20, 2026) the country had dealt its enemies a “dizzying blow” in the war with the United States and Israel, as fresh blasts hit Tehran on the first day of the Persian New Year festival.
He released a message marking the start of Persian New Year which he named the year of a “resistance economy under national unity and national security.”
Iran-Israel war LIVE
Israel accused Tehran of an “attack on the holy sites” of Jerusalem, after a blast blew a crater in the Old CIty a few hundred metres from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Mr. Khamenei has not appeared in public since being named to succeed his father Ali Khamenei, who was killed in Israeli airstrikes at the start of the war that has engulfed the region, and has only issued written statements.
Iranians have “dealt him (the enemy) a dizzying blow so that he now starts uttering contradictory words and nonsense,” Mr. Khamenei said in a written message for Nowruz, the Persian New Year.
“At the moment, due to the particular unity that has been created between you our compatriots — despite all the differences in religious, intellectual, cultural and political origins — the enemy has been defeated,” Mr. Khamenei said in the message.
He also said Iran and allied forces in the region were “in no way” behind attacks on Oman and Turkey during the war, instead blaming “deception by the Zionist enemy” in reference to Israel.
The statement of defiance came as Iranians marked a muted Nowruz under the shadow of a war now approaching its fourth week.
AFP journalists heard several blasts in Tehran on Friday (March 20, 2026), from the eastern and northern parts of the city.
In the Iranian capital’s markets, shoppers were out in force buying new clothes and gifts, although sidewalks were less packed than usual for this time of year, with many people having fled north, AFP correspondents said.
‘Decimated’
Huge banners bearing images of Nowruz, which begins officially in the evening, have replaced portraits of the former leader Ali Khamenei, assassinated on the first day of the war on February 28 by Israel.
Israel said it had confirmed that Ismaeil Ahmadi, the chief of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force, was “eliminated” in a strike earlier this week that also killed its top commander.
Elsewhere in Iran, the Israeli army also targeted a northern region around the Caspian Sea, a popular holiday destination that has so far been largely spared attacks.
And in Jerusalem’s Old City, a blast was caused “Iranian missile fragments”, the Israeli military wrote on X, and drew an angry response from Israel’s foreign ministry.
“The Iranian attack on the holy sites sacred to all three religions reveals the madness of the Iranian regime, which claims to be religious,” the foreign ministry wrote on X, calling it an “Iranian gift” for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.
On Thursday (March 29, 2026), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that an end to the fighting could be close.
Mr. Netanyahu said Iran was “being decimated” and the war was “ending a lot faster than people think”, though he warned a “ground component” may be needed to dislodge the Iranian government.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said “major concessions — a radical change of stance” would be needed from Iran to secure a lasting political end to the war.
Published – March 20, 2026 10:25 pm IST
