DUBAI: US President Donald Trump said his war with Iran may only end with its military and rulers wiped out, as Tehran moved on Sunday toward picking a new supreme leader while missiles and drones flew across the Middle East.
Shortly after Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One he was not interested in negotiating an end to the conflict that has roiled oil markets, hurt business and snarled global travel, US ally Israel announced fresh strikes across Iran that it said had hit critical fuel storage sites.
“At some point, I don’t think there will be anybody left maybe to say, ‘We surrender,’” Trump said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Sunday that the country’s forces could fight an intense war for six months against the United States and Israel.
The clerical body charged with choosing Iran’s next supreme leader could meet as soon as Sunday to name a successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an attack early in the conflict, Iranian media reported.
The Israeli military, in a post on X, warned it would pursue every successor.
Trump has earlier warned in a social media post that more Iran officials will be targets in war, saying: ‘Today Iran will be hit very hard!’
“Iran, which is being beat to HELL, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore. This promise was only made because of the relentless US and Israeli attack,” Trump also said.
The US leader in his post threatened to expand strikes to include new targets.
“Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time,” Trump posted on his Truth Social account.
Trump also said that Iran is no longer the “Bully of the Middle East” in his post.
President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier apologized for Iran’s attacks on regional countries, insisting that Tehran would halt them and suggesting they were caused by miscommunication in the ranks.
Pezeshkian said its temporary leadership council had approved the suspension of attacks against neighboring countries unless an attack on Iran came from those countries.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said his remarks were “misinterpreted by the enemy that seeks to sow division with neighbours”, state TV reported on Sunday, after they were viewed as a decision to suspend attacks on Gulf countries while strikes did not stop.
“It has repeatedly been said we are brothers and must have good relations with neighbours. However, we are forced to retaliate to attacks but this does not mean we have a dispute with a (neighbouring) country or want to upset their people,” Pezeshkian said.
But Trump said he’s ruled out having Kurds join the Iran war.
He told reporters aboard Air Force One that Kurdish fighters in region are willing to assist in efforts to topple the Iranian government, but their involvement would make the conflict more complicated.
“The war is complicated enough without having, getting the Kurds involved,” Trump said.
Trump has justified the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by saying Tehran posed an imminent threat to the United States, without providing evidence.
He has also said Iran was too close to being able to build a nuclear weapon.
The US and Israel have discussed sending special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium at a later stage of the war, Axios reported, citing four people with knowledge of the discussions.
Asked about the possibility of sending ground troops to secure nuclear sites on Saturday, Trump said it was something they could do “later on.”
The US-Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians and wounded thousands, according to Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani.
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 disrupting air travel.
Kuwait’s national oil company began cutting output on Saturday, adding to earlier oil and gas cuts from Iraq and Qatar. Oil prices have hit multi-year highs with the conflict effectively shutting the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran accused the US and Israel of striking an oil depot in the Iranian capital on Saturday, the first reported assault on the Islamic republic’s oil infrastructure as stock markets have slumped and crude prices surged.
