Trump issues fiery new threat against Iran as details of US aviator’s rescue emerge

U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump on Sun­day made ex­ple­tive-laden new threats to es­ca­late strikes on Iran and its in­fra­struc­ture if it doesn’t open the Strait of Hor­muz by his dead­line, af­ter Amer­i­can forces res­cued an avi­a­tor whose Iran-downed plane fell be­hind en­e­my lines.

A de­fi­ant Iran struck in­fra­struc­ture tar­gets in neigh­bor­ing Gulf Arab coun­tries, chal­lenged the U.S. ac­count of the res­cue and threat­ened to re­strict an­oth­er heav­i­ly used wa­ter­way in the re­gion, the Bab el-Man­deb Strait off the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la.

In a so­cial me­dia post, Trump vowed to hit Iran’s pow­er plants and bridges and said the coun­try would be “liv­ing in Hell” if the Strait of Hor­muz, cru­cial for glob­al trade, isn’t opened by Tues­day. He end­ed with “Praise be to Al­lah.”

Trump has is­sued such dead­lines be­fore but ex­tend­ed them when me­di­a­tors have claimed progress to­ward end­ing the war, which has killed thou­sands, shak­en glob­al mar­kets and spiked fu­el prices in just over five weeks.

“It seems Trump has be­come a phe­nom­e­non that nei­ther Ira­ni­ans nor Amer­i­cans are able to ful­ly an­a­lyze,” Iran­ian Cul­ture Min­is­ter Sayed Reza Sal­i­hi-Amiri told vis­it­ing As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists in an in­ter­view in Tehran, adding that the pres­i­dent “con­stant­ly shifts be­tween con­tra­dic­to­ry po­si­tions.”

Both sides have threat­ened and hit civil­ian tar­gets like oil fields and de­sali­na­tion plants crit­i­cal for drink­ing wa­ter. Iran’s U.N. mis­sion on so­cial me­dia called Trump’s threat “clear ev­i­dence of in­tent to com­mit war crime.”

Iran’s mil­i­tary joint com­mand warned of stepped-up re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks on re­gion­al oil and civil­ian in­fra­struc­ture if the U.S. and Is­rael at­tack such tar­gets there, ac­cord­ing to state tele­vi­sion.

The laws of armed con­flict al­low at­tacks on civil­ian in­fra­struc­ture on­ly if the mil­i­tary ad­van­tage out­weighs the civil­ian harm, le­gal schol­ars say. It’s con­sid­ered a high bar to clear, and caus­ing ex­ces­sive suf­fer­ing to civil­ians can con­sti­tute a war crime.

U.S. de­scribes a dra­mat­ic res­cue

An in­tense search had fol­lowed Fri­day’s crash of the F-15E Strike Ea­gle, while Iran promised a re­ward for the “en­e­my pi­lot.”

Trump said that the ser­vice mem­ber was “se­ri­ous­ly wound­ed and re­al­ly brave” and res­cued from “deep in­side the moun­tains” in an op­er­a­tion in­volv­ing dozens of armed air­craft. He said a sec­ond crew mem­ber was res­cued in “broad day­light” with­in hours of the crash.

A se­nior U.S. ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cial said that pri­or to lo­cat­ing the pi­lot, the CIA spread word in­side Iran that U.S. forces had found him and were mov­ing him for ex­fil­tra­tion, con­fus­ing Iran­ian of­fi­cials. The of­fi­cial spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss de­tails not yet made pub­lic.

The fight­er jet was the first known Amer­i­can air­craft to crash in Iran­ian ter­ri­to­ry since the U.S. and Is­rael launched the war with strikes on Iran on Feb. 28.

Iran al­so shot down an­oth­er U.S. mil­i­tary plane, demon­strat­ing both the per­ils of the bomb­ing cam­paign and the abil­i­ty of Iran’s de­grad­ed mil­i­tary to hit back. Nei­ther the sta­tus of the A-10 at­tack air­craft’s crew nor where it crashed is known.

On Sun­day, Iran’s state tele­vi­sion aired a video show­ing what it claimed were parts of U.S. air­craft shot down by Iran­ian forces. The broad­cast­er said that Iran had shot down a trans­port plane and two he­li­copters that were part of the res­cue op­er­a­tion.

How­ev­er, a re­gion­al in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cial briefed on the mis­sion told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that the U.S. mil­i­tary blew up two trans­port planes be­cause of a tech­ni­cal mal­func­tion and brought in ad­di­tion­al air­craft to com­plete the res­cue. The of­fi­cial spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss the covert mis­sion.

Two Black Hawk he­li­copters were hit dur­ing the res­cue but nav­i­gat­ed to safe air­space, ac­cord­ing to a per­son fa­mil­iar with the sit­u­a­tion who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss the sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion.

Diplo­mat­ic ef­forts con­tin­ue

Trump’s up­com­ing dead­line cen­ters on grow­ing alarm over Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hor­muz, crit­i­cal for ship­ments of oil and gas from the Per­sian Gulf to Eu­rope and Asia as well as hu­man­i­tar­i­an sup­plies. Some ships have paid Iran for pas­sage.

An Iran­ian pres­i­den­tial spokesper­son, Seyyed Mo­ham­mad Meh­di Tabatabaei, said on so­cial me­dia that the strait can re­open on­ly if some tran­sit rev­enues com­pen­sate Iran for war dam­ages.

A top Iran­ian ad­vis­er, Ali Ak­bar Ve­lay­ati, warned on so­cial me­dia that Tehran al­so could dis­rupt trade on the Bab el-Man­deb, a key wa­ter­way to and from the Suez Canal.

Diplo­mat­ic ef­forts con­tin­ued.

Oman’s For­eign Min­istry said that deputy for­eign min­is­ters and ex­perts from Iran and Oman met to dis­cuss pro­pos­als to en­sure “smooth tran­sit” through the strait. Oman has of­ten served as a me­di­a­tor be­tween the U.S. and Iran.

Egypt said that For­eign Min­is­ter Badr Ab­de­lat­ty had spo­ken with U.S. en­voy Steve Witkoff and Iran­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi, as well as with Turk­ish and Pak­istani coun­ter­parts.

Is­lam­abad has said that it would soon host talks be­tween the U.S. and Iran.

Gulf tar­gets struck by Iran

In Kuwait, Iran­ian drone at­tacks caused sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to pow­er plants and a petro­chem­i­cal plant. They al­so put a wa­ter de­sali­na­tion sta­tion out of ser­vice, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Elec­tric­i­ty.

In Bahrain, a drone at­tack caused a fire at one of the na­tion­al oil com­pa­ny’s stor­age fa­cil­i­ties and a state-run petro­chem­i­cal plant, the king­dom’s of­fi­cial news agency said.

In the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, au­thor­i­ties re­spond­ed to fires at a petro­chem­i­cal plant in Ruwais that they said were caused by in­ter­cept­ed de­bris, halt­ing op­er­a­tions.

The strikes came a day af­ter Is­rael struck a ma­jor petro­chem­i­cal plant in Iran that Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu said gen­er­at­ed rev­enue used to fund the war. The petro­chem­i­cal in­dus­try con­verts oil and gas in­to prod­ucts like plas­tics and fer­til­iz­er.

Mean­while, more than 1,900 peo­ple have been killed in Iran since the war be­gan.

In Gulf Arab states and the oc­cu­pied West Bank, more than two dozen peo­ple have died, while 19 have been re­port­ed dead in Is­rael and 13 U.S. ser­vice mem­bers have been killed. In Lebanon, more than 1,400 peo­ple have been killed and more than 1 mil­lion peo­ple have been dis­placed. Ten Is­raeli sol­diers have died there.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP)