Reuters 4 hours ago News 2 Views
United States (US) President Donald Trump threatened further strikes on Iran‘s Kharg Island oil export hub and urged allies to send warships to secure the Strait of Hormuz, as Tehran vowed to step up its response and the war showed no sign on Sunday of coming to an end.
Trump said the US strikes had “totally demolished” most of Kharg Island and warned that more could follow, telling NBC News, “We may hit it a few more times just for fun.” While he said Tehran appeared ready to make a deal to end the conflict, he added that “the terms aren’t good enough yet.”
The comments marked an escalation in rhetoric from the president, who had previously said the U.S. targeted only military sites on Kharg. They also undercut diplomatic efforts, with three sources familiar with the situation telling Reuters that Trump’s administration had already rebuffed efforts by Middle Eastern allies to start negotiations aimed at ending the war.
Tehran’s ability to stop shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a major channel for oil and gas, poses a difficult problem for the US and its allies. Energy prices are soaring as the war causes the biggest-ever disruption in oil supply.
“The Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help, A LOT!” Trump wrote in a social media post on Saturday. “The US will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well.”
As the conflict stretched into its third week, both sides appeared to be digging in for an extended fight.
Iran projected defiance, rejecting the possibility of any ceasefire until US and Israeli airstrikes end.
Iranian forces have kept up their strikes. A drone attack disrupted a major United Arab Emirates energy hub on Saturday and the US warned US citizens on Saturday to leave Iraq after a missile attack on the embassy in Baghdad overnight Friday.
Since Israel and the United States began air attacks on Iran on February 28, the war has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in Iran, according to reports from governments and state media. At least 15 were killed when an airstrike hit a refrigerator and heater factory in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, the semi-official Fars news agency said on Saturday.
Iran called on civilians in the UAE to evacuate ports, docks and “American hideouts,” saying U.S. forces had targeted Iran from those areas. The UAE denied that strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island overnight Friday had come from its territory.
Calling any facility associated with the United States a “legitimate target,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps urged all US industries to move out of the region.
Oil market disruptions looked unlikely to end soon. Some oil-loading operations were suspended in the UAE’s Fujairah emirate, a global ship-refueling hub, after a drone attack, industry and trade sources said on Saturday.
The emirate’s media office said a drone was intercepted, but civil defence forces as of late Saturday were still trying to put out a fire caused by falling debris.
www.sabcnews.com, https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/trump-threatens-more-strikes-on-irans-kharg-island/
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