Attacks persist on Iran and across the Mideast as Trump threatens escalation

Iran kept up its at­tacks on Is­rael and Per­sian Gulf neigh­bors on Wednes­day as airstrikes pound­ed Tehran and U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump again made con­tra­dic­to­ry state­ments about whether he was ready to wind down the war or es­ca­late it.

Trump struck a bel­liger­ent tone Wednes­day in a Truth So­cial post, de­mand­ing that Iran stop block­ing the Strait of Hor­muz — the wa­ter­way vi­tal to glob­al oil sup­plies — or the U.S. would bomb the Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic “back to the Stone Ages.” A day ear­li­er, Trump said the U.S. “will not have any­thing to do with” en­sur­ing the se­cu­ri­ty of ships pass­ing through Hor­muz; that was an ap­par­ent back­track from a pre­vi­ous threat to at­tack Iran’s pow­er grid if it didn’t open the strait by April 6.

Trump, who is sched­uled to give a tele­vised ad­dress Wednes­day evening, said Tues­day he could walk away from the war in two to three weeks once he felt con­fi­dent Iran would not be able to build a nu­clear weapon — even if Tehran does not agree to a cease­fire.

But his lat­est Truth So­cial post struck a hard­er line as more Amer­i­can troops move in­to the re­gion for a pos­si­ble ground of­fen­sive af­ter weeks of airstrikes tar­get­ing Iran.

Trump al­so claimed Wednes­day that “Iran’s New Regime Pres­i­dent” want­ed a cease­fire. It wasn’t clear to whom the U.S. pres­i­dent was re­fer­ring since Iran still has the same pres­i­dent. Iran’s For­eign Min­istry spokesman, Es­mail Baghaei, called Trump’s claim “false and base­less,” ac­cord­ing to a re­port on Iran­ian state tele­vi­sion.

Speak­ing ear­li­er to Al Jazeera, Iran­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi sig­naled Tehran’s will­ing­ness to keep fight­ing. “You can­not speak to the peo­ple of Iran in the lan­guage of threats and dead­lines,” he said. “We do not set any dead­line for de­fend­ing our­selves.”

No signs of Iran re­lin­quish­ing its grip on the Strait of Hor­muz

Since the war be­gan on Feb. 28, Trump has of­fered shift­ing ob­jec­tives and re­peat­ed­ly has said it could be over soon while al­so threat­en­ing to widen the con­flict. Thou­sands of ad­di­tion­al U.S. troops are cur­rent­ly head­ing to the Mid­dle East, and spec­u­la­tion abounds about the pur­pose of their de­ploy­ment.

Just days ago, Trump threat­ened to at­tack Iran’s Kharg Is­land oil ex­port hub. And there has al­so been spec­u­la­tion about whether the U.S. could de­cide to send in mil­i­tary forces to se­cure Iran’s ura­ni­um stock­pile — a com­plex and risky op­er­a­tion, fraught with ra­di­a­tion and chem­i­cal dan­gers, ac­cord­ing to ex­perts and for­mer gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials.

Adding to the con­fu­sion is what role Is­rael — which has been bomb­ing Iran along­side the U.S. — might play in any of these sce­nar­ios.

Trump has been un­der grow­ing pres­sure to end the war as oil prices have sky­rock­et­ed, push­ing up the cost of gaso­line, food and oth­er goods. The price of Brent crude, the in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard, is up more than 40% since the start of the war, though it de­clined slight­ly on Wednes­day and trad­ed at around $101 a bar­rel.

It’s un­clear where diplo­mat­ic ef­forts stand

The U.S. has pre­sent­ed Iran with a 15-point plan aimed at bring­ing about a cease­fire, in­clud­ing a de­mand for the strait to be re­opened and for its nu­clear pro­gram to be rolled back.

Iran in­sists its nu­clear pro­gram is peace­ful. And in a re­port last week by Iran­ian state TV’s Eng­lish-lan­guage broad­cast­er, an anony­mous of­fi­cial was quot­ed as say­ing Iran had its own de­mands to end the fight­ing, in­clud­ing re­tain­ing sov­er­eign­ty over the strait.

In the in­ter­view with Al Jazeera, Araghchi ac­knowl­edged re­ceiv­ing di­rect mes­sages from U.S. Mideast en­voy Steve Witkoff. He in­sist­ed, how­ev­er, that there were no di­rect ne­go­ti­a­tions and said Iran has no faith that talks with the U.S. could yield any re­sults, say­ing “the trust lev­el is at ze­ro.”

He warned against any U.S. at­tempt to launch a ground of­fen­sive, say­ing “we are wait­ing for them.”

In a deal os­ten­si­bly to give diplo­ma­cy a chance, U.S. of­fi­cials have giv­en “clear as­sur­ances” that Araghchi and Iran’s Par­lia­men­tary Speak­er Mo­ham­mad Bagher Qal­ibaf won’t be tar­get­ed, ac­cord­ing to three of­fi­cials who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they’re not au­tho­rized to speak pub­licly about the mat­ter.

Iran hits tanker off Qatar’s coast and at­tacks oth­er Gulf states

A cruise mis­sile slammed in­to an oil tanker off Qatar’s coast Wednes­day, the De­fense Min­istry said. The crew was evac­u­at­ed and no ca­su­al­ties were re­port­ed. A Kuwaiti oil tanker came un­der at­tack off Dubai the day be­fore, one of more than 20 ships at­tacked by Iran dur­ing the war.

In the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, a per­son was killed when he was hit by de­bris from an in­ter­cept­ed drone in Fu­jairah, one of the coun­try’s sev­en emi­rates.

In Kuwait, the state-run KU­NA news agency said a drone hit a fu­el tank at Kuwait In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, spark­ing a large fire.

Jor­dan’s mil­i­tary said it in­ter­cept­ed a bal­lis­tic mis­sile and two drones fired from Iran in the last 24 hours. No ca­su­al­ties were re­port­ed. Two drones were al­so in­ter­cept­ed in Sau­di Ara­bia.

In Is­rael, sirens sound­ed to warn of in­com­ing mis­siles and AP re­porters heard loud booms in Tel Aviv as the win­dows of build­ings shook from the re­ver­ber­a­tions. There were no im­me­di­ate re­ports of dam­age or ca­su­al­ties.

An airstrike on Tehran ap­peared to have hit the for­mer U.S. Em­bassy com­pound, which has been con­trolled by Iran’s Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard since Amer­i­can diplo­mats were held hostage there in 1979. Wit­ness­es said build­ings out­side the mas­sive com­pound had their win­dows blown out.

Is­rael strikes Lebanon

In Lebanon, at least five peo­ple were killed in an Is­raeli strike on a Beirut neigh­bor­hood.

Is­rael in­vad­ed south­ern Lebanon af­ter the Iran-linked Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group be­gan launch­ing mis­siles in­to north­ern Is­rael days af­ter the out­break of the war. Many Lebanese fear an­oth­er pro­longed mil­i­tary oc­cu­pa­tion.

More than 1,200 peo­ple have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1 mil­lion dis­placed, ac­cord­ing to au­thor­i­ties. Ten Is­raeli sol­diers have al­so died there.

In Iran, au­thor­i­ties say more than 1,900 peo­ple have been killed, while 19 have been re­port­ed dead in Is­rael. More than two dozen peo­ple have died in Gulf states and the oc­cu­pied West Bank, while 13 U.S. ser­vice mem­bers have been killed.

DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP)