‘Three more weeks’ of war on Iran, Trump issues fresh oil threats
US President Donald Trump says he might hit Iran’s Kharg Island “a few more times, just for fun” as the death toll rises to the thousands in the Middle East.
Source: Benjamin Netanyahu
Israel’s army is planning for at least three more weeks of its campaign against Iran while the US Energy Secretary predicts the war will end within “the next few weeks”.
“We have thousands of targets ahead,” Israeli army spokesman Effie Defrin told US broadcaster CNN.
“We are ready, in co-ordination with our US allies, with plans through at least the Jewish holiday of Passover, about three weeks from now. And we have deeper plans for even three weeks beyond that.”
Passover, a key date in the Jewish religious calendar, starts on the night of April 1 when families gather to mark the liberation of Jews from Egyptian slavery thousands of years ago.
The Israeli military reports that its air force has carried out more than 400 waves of strikes since the war in the Middle East started on February 28, targeting Iranian infrastructure in particular.
Reports show the war has spread across the Middle East and killed more than 2000 people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon.
Defrin told CNN that the Israeli military was “not working according to a stopwatch or a timetable but rather to achieve our goals”.
The aim was to severely weaken the Iranian government, the brigadier general said.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Sunday (US time) that he expected the war with Iran to end within “the next few weeks”. Oil supplies would then rebound and energy costs decline afterwards.
“I think that this conflict will certainly come to the end in the next few weeks – could be sooner than that. But the conflict will come to the end in the next few weeks, and we’ll see a rebound in supplies and a pushing down in prices after that,” Wright told the US broadcaster.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Iran would continue to defend itself from US and Israeli attacks until US President Donald Trump understood there was no path to victory.
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“We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes,” Araqchi told CBS News.
He said they would “continue to do that until President Trump comes to the point that this is an illegal war with no victory”.
Asked whether Iran had requested a pause in hostilities, he said: “No, we never asked for a ceasefire and we have never asked even for negotiation”.
Trump told NBC News that Iran appeared ready to make a deal to end the fighting but that “the terms aren’t good enough yet”.
In his interview with NBC, Trump raised the possibility that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei may have been killed but Araqchi said Khamenei was in full health and managing the conflict.
The US has brushed aside attempts by Middle Eastern allies to open talks with Iran, three sources told Reuters.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday they had fired more missiles at Israel and three US bases in the region.
More strikes, ‘just for fun’
Trump is threatening more strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub, telling NBC News on Saturday, “we may hit it a few more times just for fun”.
He said US strikes had “totally demolished” much of the island.
The remarks marked a sharp escalation from Trump, who had previously said the US was targeting only military sites on Kharg, and undercut diplomatic efforts.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Iran would respond to any attack on its energy facilities.
Trump has also urged allies to deploy warships to secure the Strait of Hormuz, an artery for global energy supplies, as Tehran vows to intensify its response.
Tehran’s capacity to choke off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz – the gateway for a fifth of the world’s oil – has vaulted from a long-standing danger to an urgent flashpoint, threatening to upend the global economy.
Energy prices have spiked as the war triggers the biggest-ever disruption in oil supply, rattling markets and governments.
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, urged China, France, Japan, South Korea, Britain and other nations to send warships to secure the Strait of Hormuz.
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“The Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help — A LOT!” he wrote.
“The US will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well.”
None of those countries gave any immediate indication they would.
South Korea’s presidential office said it would decide on Trump’s request after a “careful review”.
France is seeking to assemble a coalition to secure the Strait of Hormuz once the security situation stabilises, while Britain is discussing options with allies to ensure the security of shipping, officials have said.
Meanwhile, oil-loading operations have resumed at the global ship-refuelling hub of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, after a drone attack and fire on Saturday, a Fujairah-based industry source said.
Netanyahu responds to death rumours
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to online rumours of his death by posting online a video of himself at a cafe.
It showed Netanyahu getting a cup of coffee and chatting with his aide and follows Iranian state media airing rumours he had died.
In the video, taken at a cafe in Jerusalem’s outskirts and posted on Netanyahu’s Telegram and X accounts, his aide asks him about the online chatter in Iran.
Netanyahu responds with a pun on the word dead – which in Hebrew slang can be used to describe “being crazy about” someone or something – as he reaches for a cup of coffee.
“I’m crazy about coffee. You know what? I’m crazy about my people,” Netanyahu says.
Reuters verified the video’s location and date.
Since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28, Netanyahu has visited at least two towns hit by Iranian missiles, a hospital, port and military bases but there was little to no media access, and videos were distributed by his office.
Emergency oil near
More than 400 million barrels of oil from International Energy Agency emergency reserves will begin flowing soon, the agency says in its most detailed account of the rollout of the plan to combat a spike in crude prices since the start of the Iran war.
Stocks from Asia and Oceania countries will be available immediately and stocks from Europe and the Americas will be available at the end of March, the agency said on Sunday.
Governments have committed to make available 271.7 million barrels of oil from government stocks, 116.6 million barrels from obligated industry stocks and 23.6 million barrels from other sources.
—with AAP
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