Escalation warning: Trump mulls widening Iran targets
US President Donald Trump has warned Iran it is about to be “hit very hard” and that there could be a widening of targets.
Source: White House / X
Trump said under serious consideration for “complete destruction and certain death” were areas and groups of people that have not been considered until now.
Trump also noted that Iran had apologised to its neighbours for its strikes against them, a move he cast as a surrender, as the war enters its second week.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had apologised in an apparent bid to ease regional anger at Tehran’s strikes on Gulf Arab civilian targets.
Pezeshkian said Iran’s temporary leadership council had approved suspending attacks on nearby countries – unless an attack on Iran came from those nations.
“I personally apologise to neighbouring countries that were affected by Iran’s actions,” he said on Saturday.
Pezeshkian’s comments caused a political stir in Iran, prompting his office to reiterate Iran’s military would respond firmly to attacks from US bases in the region.
Strikes directed at Gulf states continued to be reported on Saturday.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, meanwhile, accused the United States of attacking a “freshwater desalination plant”.
Hours after Pezeshkian’s announcement, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said their drones struck a US air combat centre at al-Dhafra Air Base, near the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi.
The Revolutionary Guards also targeted US forces at a base in Bahrain, the Iranian state media said.
Blasts were also heard in Doha, a Reuters witness said.
Hamid Rasai, a hardline cleric and MP, wrote on X, “Mr Pezeshkian, your stance was unprofessional, weak and unacceptable”.
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Diplomatic campaign implodes
Iran had mended fences with its Gulf neighbours in recent years – a diplomatic campaign that imploded as the Revolutionary Guards launched a blitz of drones and missiles in the past week.
Gulf states voiced immediate outrage that their civilian infrastructure – hotels, ports and oil facilities – were struck despite their having had no part in the US-Israeli attacks.
While Gulf states host US military bases, they had told Washington they would not allow these to be used for any attacks on Iran.
Iran’s apparent strategy of maximum chaos has driven up the costs of the conflict by raising energy prices, hurting global business and logistics links and shaking trust in the stability of a critical region for the world’s economy.
Pezeshkian’s remarks came as diplomatic prospects for an end to hostilities appeared bleak, with US President Donald Trump on Friday demanding Tehran’s “unconditional surrender”.
Rising toll
The US-Israeli attacks have killed at least 1332 Iranian civilians and wounded thousands, according to Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani.
Iranian attacks have killed 11 people in Israel, and at least six US service members have been killed.
Early on Saturday, the Iranian army said its navy had carried out drone strikes against targets in Israel as well as US gathering points and bases in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait, in an apparent response to the US attack on its ship IRIS Dena that killed dozens of sailors.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it struck three positions of separatist groups in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, and warned that if separatist groups took any action against Iran’s territorial integrity, “we will crush them”.
The Israeli military earlier said it had identified missiles launched from Iran towards Israel.
Shortly after the barrage, the Israeli army said it had begun a wave of strikes targeting infrastructure in Tehran.
Israel also attacked neighbouring Lebanon, where it said it was hitting Iranian and Hezbollah targets.
The war has roiled global markets and oil prices have hit multi-year highs with the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut.
About one-fifth of global oil moves daily through the strait.
Iran has described the conflict as an unprovoked attack and the killing of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as an assassination.
Transfer of Americans killed
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Trump on Saturday joined grieving families at Dover Air Force Base for the return of the remains of six US military members killed in the war.
They died when a drone hit a command centre in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, just a day after the US and Israel launched its campaign against Iran.
Israel pounds Hezbollah strongholds
Israel has warned Lebanon of a “very heavy price” if it does not rein in Iran-backed Hezbollah as it pounded the group’s strongholds around the country with air strikes and mounted a deadly airborne raid in the east.
Lebanon was dragged into the wider Middle East war on Monday when Hezbollah fired at Israel, which responded with a new military campaign that has forced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their homes.
On Saturday, more buildings in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut lay as mounds of smoking rubble and twisted metal, Reuters video showed, after heavy Israeli bombardment that followed an evacuation order.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, addressing Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun in a statement, said that if the Lebanese government failed to enforce a 2024 agreement to disarm Hezbollah, it and the whole country would suffer.
“If the choice is between protecting our civilians and our soldiers or protecting the state of Lebanon – we will choose the protection of our civilians and soldiers, and the Lebanese government and Lebanon will pay a very heavy price,” Katz said.
He added that Israel had no territorial claims against Lebanon but would not allow a situation where there could be fire targeting Israel from Lebanese territory.
Overnight, Israeli helicopters dropped troops near the town of Nabi Chit in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley in a rare airborne operation.
Israel’s military said the troops had staged the operation to seek the remains of Ron Arad, an Israeli airforce navigator missing in Lebanon since 1986.
However, no findings related to him were recovered, it said.
Hezbollah said in a statement overnight that it had fired on Israeli troops dropped near Nabi Chit by four helicopters, and that the troops had withdrawn.
The Israeli military said none of its forces were injured.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said 41 people had been killed in the last 24 hours in Israeli attacks in the Nabi Chit area.
The Lebanese army said three of its personnel were among the dead.
Shawki al-Masri, who lives in a town adjacent to Nabi Chit, described the overnight bombing in the area as “a night of hell”.
“We heard the helicopters over our house all night – they were so low we thought they would land on us,” he told Reuters.
“People in the town woke up and started shooting at them, then the warplanes started bombing. It was a very violent night and only calmed down when the sun came up,” he said.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 200 people across Lebanon, and orders to leave have displaced about 300,000 people, only a third of whom are now living in government shelters.
A senior United Nations official described the displacement as “unprecedented” in comments to Reuters on Friday.
Hezbollah has also warned Israeli citizens living in communities near the border to flee their homes although Katz said on Saturday they should not do so.
Many northern Israeli communities were evacuated during crossborder bombardment in 2023-24.
Also on Saturday, Hezbollah issued a more specific warning, telling residents of the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shimona to leave immediately and head south.
—with AAP
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