DUBAI/WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Thursday (Jun 11) the United States would hit Iran “very hard tonight” and wanted eventually to take Iran’s oil infrastructure hub Kharg Island, after tit-for-tat strikes in the Gulf that have undermined a shaky ceasefire.
Iranian sources and Western officials said indirect US-Iranian talks on a preliminary peace deal had intensified.
But a worsening of hostilities this week has undermined prospects for a swift end to more than three months of war.
Trump threatened new strikes on Iran after the two sides traded air attacks on Thursday for the second successive day.
“The United States will be hitting Iran (Whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most its offensive capability, are GONE!), VERY HARD TONIGHT,” Trump said in a social media post.
“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets,” he said, referring to Iran’s main oil hub.
Tehran did not immediately respond to Trump’s latest remarks, but Iran’s foreign ministry said earlier on Thursday that the ceasefire agreed in early April had been effectively rendered meaningless by the latest US attacks.
The war has killed thousands of people, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, and pushed up global oil prices since the US and Israel launched heavy airstrikes on Iran on Feb 28.
Talks on halting the conflict have stalled but three Iranian sources and Western officials said indirect US-Iranian talks were continuing, with some issues yet to be discussed in detail, including a mechanism for the release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds.
“This war, from a military standpoint, is a dead end. The Americans could not achieve their goals by attacking Iran. There has been progress in negotiations,” said one of the Iranian sources.
Trump has repeatedly said a deal is close, but US officials did not immediately comment on the latest status of the indirect negotiations.
Reflecting the view that military action had become part of the tense negotiations, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday: “If we need to negotiate with bombs, we’ll negotiate with bombs, and we’re very good at it.”
TIT-FOR-TAT STRIKES
Iran exports most of its oil via Kharg Island with volumes usually amounting to 2 million barrels per day, or around 2 per cent of global supply, and flowing mainly to China.
A move by the US to capture the island would not have an immediate impact on oil shipments, however, since those flows have been suspended in recent weeks following the US blockade of Iranian oil exports.
The US carried out attacks across Iran on Thursday and Tehran fired at US bases in the region following Monday’s downing of a US Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz.
The US military said “military surveillance capabilities, communication systems and air defense sites across Iran” had been targeted in about four hours of attacks in response to Tehran’s “unwarranted and continued aggression”.
Iranian news agencies reported explosions in several cities and said five people were hurt.
Oil prices rose on Thursday after Trump made his comments about hitting Iran “very hard tonight” and taking control of its oil and gas infrastructure and markets.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had launched counterattacks on 18 US military targets at airbases in Kuwait and Bahrain on Thursday, and on the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain.
It said it also targeted a US airbase in Jordan for a second successive night.
Bahrain’s interior ministry said an 11-year-old girl suffered minor injuries and homes were damaged in the town of Hamad and the capital, Manama, after debris fell from Iranian drones that were intercepted and destroyed.
Kuwait briefly closed its airspace because of an Iranian attack.