Trump rejects resolving the war with Iran and raises the possibility of killing all its potential leaders
BEIRUT/MIAMI/TEL AVIV/DUBAI, March 8 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said he is not interested in negotiating with Iran and raised the possibility that the war against Iran will only end once Tehran no longer has a functioning military or any remaining leadership in power.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday, Trump said the air campaign could make negotiations moot if all of Iran’s potential leaders are killed and the Iranian military is destroyed.
“At some point, I don’t think there will be anyone left who will say ‘We surrender,'” Trump said.
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APOLOGIES FROM IRAN’S PRESIDENT CAUSE SHOCK
Israel and Iran exchanged numerous attacks on Saturday as the US-Israel war against Iran entered its second week. Iran’s president apologized to neighboring states for his attacks on US facilities in those countries, in an attempt to calm anger across the Gulf, but drew criticism from hardliners at home.
“I personally apologize to neighboring countries that were affected by Iran’s actions,” said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, urging them not to join US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
He dismissed Trump’s demand for an unconditional surrender of the Islamic Republic as “a dream” but said his temporary leadership council had agreed to suspend attacks on neighboring states unless attacks on Iran originated on its territory.
Pezeshkian’s comments caused a political uproar in Iran, prompting his office to reiterate that the Iranian military would respond firmly to attacks from US bases. Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on state television that there were no differences among Iranian officials over their handling of the war.
The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Saudi Arabia has told Tehran that continued Iranian attacks on the kingdom and its energy sector could push Riyadh to respond in kind, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The governments of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates reported Iranian drone strikes on their countries on Saturday and early Sunday with varying degrees of damage but no deaths. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard also attacked US forces at a base in Bahrain, Iranian state media said.
In the United States, the White House has suspended for now a federal security bulletin that would have warned of a heightened threat to the United States in light of the conflict with Iran, a Trump administration official told Reuters. But a recent U.S. intelligence assessment warned that Iran and its proxies “likely” pose a threat of targeted attacks on the United States.
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In Oslo, the US embassy was hit by an explosion early Sunday, causing minor damage but no injuries, Norwegian police said. Smoke was seen rising from the area around the embassy compound, witnesses told Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang. It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion or who was involved.
Huge explosions were heard in parts of Tehran, state media reported, while Israel said it had struck Iranian missile sites and command centers.
US-Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians and injured thousands, according to Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani.
US forces were likely responsible for an apparent attack on an Iranian girls’ school that killed dozens of children, US officials told Reuters. But Trump, without citing evidence, told reporters on Saturday that Iran was responsible.
“We believe it was made by Iran because, as you know, their munitions are very inaccurate. They are not accurate at all. It was made by Iran,” Trump said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, standing behind Trump aboard Air Force One, said the matter was still under investigation.
Iranian attacks have killed 10 people in Israel. At least six US service members have died. His remains arrived Saturday at an Air Force base in Delaware.
ISRAEL WARNS LEBANON TO CONTROL HEZBOLLAH
In Iran, local news agencies, citing a source in the Iranian Oil Ministry, said its fuel depots were hit by attacks in three areas, including Karaj, west of Tehran.
Tehran has responded to the US-Israel war against Iran by attacking Israel and Gulf Arab states that host US military installations. Israel has launched new attacks in Lebanon after the Iran-aligned Hezbollah militia fired across the border.
As the conflict raged, Israel warned Lebanon it would pay a “very high price” if it did not rein in Iran-allied Hezbollah militants as it attacked the group’s strongholds with airstrikes and mounted a deadly air raid in the east.
By Saturday morning, more buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs, controlled by Hezbollah, had been reduced to rubble, dust and tangled cables, Reuters video showed.
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The death toll from Israel’s strikes on Lebanon since Monday rose to around 300, after at least four people were killed when an Israeli strike hit an apartment in the Ramada hotel building in central Beirut, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said. It was the first attack to hit the heart of the capital since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah resumed last week.
Iran’s apparent strategy of maximum chaos has raised the costs of the conflict by raising energy prices and damaging global trade and logistics links.
Kuwait’s national oil company began cutting production on Saturday, adding to earlier oil and gas cuts from Iraq and Qatar.
The war has shaken global markets and oil prices have hit multi-year highs with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed.
Hardline clerics have called for the quick selection of a new supreme leader, Iranian media reported on Saturday, with meetings to be held as early as Sunday.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Miami, Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, Maya Gebeily in Beirut, Idrees Ali, Mike Stone and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington, Pesha Magid in Jerusalem, Aaron McNicholas and Reuters offices; writing by William Maclean, Matthias Williams, Richard Cowan and Alistair Bell; editing by Rod Nickel and William Mallard)