JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African anti-apartheid veteran and former defense minister Mosiuoa “Terror” Lekota has died at the age of 77 after a long illness, his political party said on Wednesday.
Lekota was a prominent activist against white minority rule in South Africa and served eight years in prison on Robben Island alongside other jailed anti-apartheid figures, including Nelson Mandela, from 1974 to 1982.
Lekota was a fiery member of various political youth organizations during apartheid and was jailed even after he was released from Robben Island for his continued anti-apartheid activism.
He served as South Africa's minister of defense from 1999 to 2008 and was also the national chairperson of the African National Congress, which governed the country after the first democratic election in 1994.
However, Lekota's relationship with the ANC soured after former President Thabo Mbeki was removed as the country's president in 2008, having lost the presidency of the ANC to former President Jacob Zuma in 2007.
He formed a breakaway party, the Congress of the People (COPE), which contested the 2009 elections. It became the third biggest opposition party with just over 7% of the national vote and 30 seats in South Africa’s 400-member parliament.
The breakaway led to a significant decline in the ANC's electoral support in 2009, with many former ANC members and leaders leaving the party to join Lekota's new political outfit.
In 2024, the ANC lost its outright majority for the first time and is now the biggest party in a coalition government.
In addition to his accolades as a political activist, Lekota was well respected as a long-serving lawmaker and political leader who strengthened the voice of opposition parties.
However, factional struggles within COPE led to its gradual decline and its failure to win any parliamentary seats during the 2024 general elections, ending Lekota's career as a lawmaker.
In 2025 he stepped away from politics for health reasons, with his party appointing an acting leader after his departure.
Tributes have poured in from across South Africa's political landscape.
“He decided to leave the ANC and formed COPE with other South Africans, by doing so he literally strengthened the opposition parties," said Bantu Holomisa, South Africa’s deputy minister of defense and leader of the opposition United Democratic Movement party.
“His role was not doubted, because he and others from the ANC did understand the passage of the struggle. And they knew very well what was the original agenda, which seemed to have been hijacked,” Holomisa said.
FILE -Mosiuoa Lekota, a former defense minister and co-founder of Cope (Congress of the People), breakaway faction of South Africa's African National Congress, reacts, as he is named the leader of the new party, at the final session of Cope's three-day founding conference in Bloemfontein, South Africa, Dec. 16, 2008. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)
Explosions sounded in Tehran Wednesday as Iran's war with the U.S. and Israel entered a fifth day following earlier strikes on an Iranian nuclear site and retaliatory strikes by the Islamic Republic across the Gulf region.
The explosions around Tehran came at dawn, according to Iran state television, while Israel’s military said its air defenses had been activated to intercept incoming Iranian missiles and explosions were heard around Jerusalem.
Five days into a war that U.S. President Donald Trump suggested could last a month or longer, nearly 800 people have been killed in Iran, including some Trump said he had considered as possible future leaders of the country.
Explosions also hit Lebanon, where Israel said it is retaliating against Hezbollah militants. Lebanon’s state-run media reported that at least four people were killed in an Israeli strike that hit a residential complex in the city of Baalbeck.
Here is the latest:
As the fighter jets roared overhead, those still in Tehran looked anxiously to the skies.
One man who ran a clothing shop said he didn’t know what, if anything, he could do.
“It’s very difficult to decide what to do. If I leave the city, how am I supposed to earn money and survive?” said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“I just hope the Arabs do not get involved. If they do, their missiles won’t be as precise as these.”
By Jon Gambrell
Airstrikes also were reported in the Iranian cities of Urmiah and Kermanshah.
The Israeli military said it had begun “broad scale strikes” in Tehran.
Airstrikes struck eastern Tehran later Wednesday morning, witnesses said.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Tuesday he discussed the rapidly evolving situation in the Middle East and its global security implications with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan.
Sybiha expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia and condemned what he described as Iran’s aggression, saying it threatens regional stability.
He said the two sides discussed the risks of further escalation and the need for diplomatic solutions, stressing that protecting civilians must remain a priority.
Sybiha noted that Ukraine has firsthand experience with missile and drone warfare, including daily attacks involving Shahed drones.
He said Kyiv is ready to share its expertise with partners facing similar threats.
Earlier, he spoke with his Kuwaiti counterpart, Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al Sabah.
“For Ukraine, this threat is not abstract. We face daily missile and drone attacks, including Iranian-made Shahed drones used by Russia against our cities and civilians,” Sybiha wrote on X.
Israel’s defense minister on Wednesday threatened whoever Iran picks to be the country’s next supreme leader, saying he will be “a target for elimination.”
Israel Katz made the statement on X.
“Every leader appointed by the Iranian terror regime to continue and lead the plan to destroy Israel, to threaten the United States and the free world and the countries of the region, and to suppress the Iranian people — will be a target for elimination,” he wrote.
Israel targeted a building Tuesday associated with Iran’s Assembly of Experts, which will select the new supreme leader.
Israel killed the 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a strike Saturday that started the war.
Qatar Airways will remain grounded until at least Friday, the airline said.
Israel’s military said it began new airstrikes in Beirut.
People staying in a hotel in a southeastern suburb of Beirut said the strike that hit the second floor came without warning.
Maggie Shibli, wife of the owner of the Hotel Comfort in the Hazmieh neighborhood, said they were sleeping when the missile hit.
“We live in a country where a missile can fall on your head at any moment,” she said.
Abbas Najdeh, who was displaced from the southern port city of Tyre and was staying at the hotel, said “we were sleeping then suddenly I, my children and my wife were thrown away.”
He added there was no warning.
The U.S. State Department has ordered non-emergency staff and their families working in the consulates in Lahore and Karachi to leave the country due to safety concerns.
Staff at the embassy in the capital Islamabad were not affected by the order.
Pakistan shares a long western border with Iran and has a sizable Shiite Muslim minority.
At least 10 people were killed in Karachi on Sunday after protesters attempted to storm the consulate in the city, Pakistan’s largest.
Starting Wednesday, there will be three nights of public mourning with the casket containing the body of the late 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran’s capital, Tehran, Iranian state television reported.
The ceremony will take place at the Grand Mosalla of Tehran.
Iranian state television said the latest salvo in the war saw Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launch 40 ballistic missiles at targets associated with the U.S. military in the Mideast.
It said it targeted Irbil in Iraq, two military bases in Kuwait, and two U.S. warships.
Strikes hit Lebanon overnight, including in several towns and on a hotel in a suburb right next to the capital.
Beirut woke up to the sounds of drones whizzing overhead.
The Israeli military warned residents in a southern suburb to flee ahead of a morning airstrike, as more displaced people fleeing the conflict pour into the capital seeking shelter.
Overnight Israeli strikes on towns near Beirut have killed at least six people, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said early Wednesday.
Israel struck the towns of Aramoun and Saadiyat just south of Beirut’s international airport, killing six and wounding eight others.
It also struck a hotel in the Beirut suburb of Hazmieh. No casualties were immediately reported there.
The strikes came without warning and the Israeli military did not immediately disclose the targets.
The Israeli military said Wednesday it conducted a series of strikes across Iran’s capital targeting its security forces.
It said it hit buildings associated with the Basij, the all-volunteer force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that conducted the bloody crackdown on protesters in January that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands detained in the country.
The Israeli military also said it hit buildings associated with Iran’s internal security command, which also has suppressed demonstrations in the past.
Israel and the U.S. have said they want to see the Iranian public overthrow its theocracy.
Strikes against counterprotest forces likely are part of that effort.
An Iranian-backed militant group in Iraq said it fired drones toward Jordan.
The group, Saraya Awliya al-Dam, said that drones were aimed at “a vital target” in the kingdom.
Earlier Wednesday, Jordan’s state-run television reported that sirens sounded across the country.
Iraqi militants on Tuesday threatened to target Jordan over allegations that U.S. aircraft that bombed their facilities took off from a Jordanian air base.
A building associated with the clerical panel that will pick Iran’s next supreme leader came under attack in an airstrike in the holy seminary city of Qom, semiofficial media reported.
The attack Tuesday hit the building in the Resalat neighborhood of Qom.
The semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, linked the building to Iran’s Assembly of Experts and said there was no meeting ongoing there at the time of the attack.
Fars further went on to say the assembly is meeting remotely, without elaborating.
It added that meetings over naming a new leader are ongoing — suggesting there could be an announcement by Iran in the coming days over who will replace the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike at the start of the war Saturday.
There was no report on if anyone was hurt in the strike.
Israel’s public broadcaster KAN said Israel carried out the attack, though there’s been no confirmation from its military.
The Assembly of Experts is an 88-member panel which “must, as soon as possible” pick a new supreme leader under Iranian law.
The panel consists entirely of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog.
The death toll from the strike on a residential complex in Baalbeck, Lebanon, rises to five, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Fifteen others were wounded and three are missing, it said.
Sirens have sounded Wednesday morning across Jordan, the kingdom’s state television reported.
An Israeli airstrike hit a hotel outside of Beirut, Lebanon’s state-run news agency reported Wednesday.
The strike came in Hazmieh, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) southeast of downtown Beirut.
The report from Lebanon’s National News Agency said ambulances had been dispatched to the scene.
It did not elaborate in its short report.
Asian shares tumbled Wednesday, with South Korea’s benchmark plunging as much as 11%, while oil prices climbed even higher.
Worries over the widening conflict with Iran have hammered most world markets.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 shed 3.4% to 54,346.73.
Japan, like South Korea, depends heavily on imports of oil and natural gas from the Middle East that are now stranded in the Persian Gulf.
The price of U.S. benchmark crude oil climbed 1.2% to $75.46 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 1.5% to $82.61 per barrel.
Higher oil prices and how much they might worsen inflation are spooking investors worried that more spikes for oil prices may grind down the global economy and sap corporate profits.
An Iranian flag is placed among the ruins of a police station struck Monday during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Firefighters inspect the rubble as smoke rises from a building hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Jewish men covered in prayer shawls pray in an underground parking garage as a precaution against possible Iranian missile attacks, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A coffin is carried during the funeral of mostly children killed in what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-U.S. strike Feb. 28 at a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)
A man takes shelter in an underground metro station as a precaution against possible Iranian missile attacks, in Ramat Gan, Israel Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
