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President Donald Trump has said the US and Israel’s war with Iran could last about four weeks.
Mr Trump, who spoke at the White House on Monday, said US action against Iran was a necessity as the country’s nuclear programme was “growing rapidly and dramatically, and this posed a very clear, colossal threat to America and our forces stationed overseas”.
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Mr Trump also declared that the war could last longer than four weeks and pledged that Washington will do whatever it takes to destroy Tehran’s missile and nuclear capabilities.
“The regime already had missiles capable of hitting Europe and our bases, both local and overseas, and would soon have missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America,” Mr Trump said.
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He also repeated the claim that the US strikes on Iran in June of last year obliterated Iran’s nuclear programme, but insisted that the country was rebuilding rapidly.
Similarly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that the war in the region could “take some time” but would not be “an endless war.”
He also declared that the campaign would be “a quick and decisive action”, later adding: “It may take some time, but it’s not going to take years.”
Ground troops in Iran
Mr Trump also told The New York Post that he is not ruling out the deployment of ground troops in Iran.
The president said he would do this “if it were necessary.”
He also declared that a “big wave” of strikes on Iran is still imminent, while adding that the US military is “knocking the crap” out of Iran.
“We haven’t even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon,” he said.
“I don’t want to see it go on too long. I always thought it would be four weeks, and we’re a little ahead of schedule,” he stated.
Mr Trump also said the biggest surprise has been Iran’s attacks on neighbouring Arab countries: the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan.
“We were surprised. We told them, ‘we’ve got this,’ and now they want to fight, and they’re aggressively fighting. They were going to be very little involved, and now they insist on being involved.”
US Embassy on Fire
Early Tuesday morning, the US embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, caught fire after being hit by two “suspected Iranian drones.”
The State Department said that the embassy was struck by two UAVs that hit the roof and the perimeter of the chancery, according to the Wall Street Journal.
But Saudi Arabia described the incident as a “limited fire” that caused “minor damages,” and warned the public to avoid the area.
Also, Lebanon’s Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Ramat David Air Base in northern Israel.
The group said it attacked in retaliation against Israel’s deadly strikes on several areas of Lebanon.
It also said it targeted radar sites and control rooms at the base by deploying “a swarm of drones” at dawn today.
But the death toll in Iran and Lebanon is now over 600 people.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam officially banned Hezbollah’s military activities.
He instructed the Lebanese army to speed up the group’s disarmament “by any means necessary”.
Israel has also issued an evacuation warning to residents living in 59 different areas of Lebanon as tension continues to rise.
Hamas has also criticised what it described as “aggression” and “dangerous escalation” by Israel against Lebanese territory.
Iran closes Strait of Hormuz as US attacks its military ships
The Iranian armed forces officially declared the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes, closed.
The adviser to the IRGC commander, Ebrahim Jabari, said Iran will set on fire “any ships that wish to pass through this strait,” according to Al Jazeera.
“The price of oil has reached $81, and the world is certainly waiting for it to reach at least $200. The Strait of Hormuz is closed.
READ ALSO: Bombing of Iran’s primary school ‘grave violation of humanitarian law’ – UNESCO
“We’ll also target their oil pipelines in the region, and we will not allow oil exports from this region until we put pressure on the enemy. The Americans have debts of hundreds of billions of dollars, and they are thirsty for the region’s oil. They will not get a single drop,” he said.
Meanwhile, CENTCOM said it has eliminated the Iranian naval fleet in the Gulf of Oman.
“Two days ago, the Iranian regime had 11 ships in the Gulf of Oman; today, they have ZERO.”
“The Iranian regime has harassed and attacked international shipping in the Gulf of Oman for decades,” it added. “Those days are over,” it wrote on X.
