US President Donald Trump has told Iran “a whole civilisation will die tonight” if the regime doesn’t agree to a deal to end the war by his Wednesday 10am AET deadline.
“A whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Mr Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalised minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”
Mr Trump gave the Iranian regime until 8pm ET on Tuesday (10am AET Wednesday) to agree to a deal that includes a ceasefire and the reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
The chilling warning came moments after US-Israeli hit the key Iranian oil export terminal of Kharg island in a new round of strikes.
“The American-Zionist enemy has carried out several attacks on Kharg island, and several explosions have been heard there,” Iran’s Mehr news agency reported on Tuesday.
According to an X post by journalist Barak Ravid of the news site Axios, citing a US official, the US carried out “strikes on military targets” on the island located off Iran’s western coast.
Mr Trump has repeatedly threatened nationwide destruction of Iran’s civilian infrastructure.
However, The New York Times quoted an unidentified White House official saying that the targets on Kharg Island were military. CNN quoted a US official saying the strikes were against military targets and did not hit oil facilities.
Kharg Island is at the heart of Iran’s oil export industry, a linchpin of the country’s battered economy, and lies in the narrow, strategic Hormuz Strait.
The main US oil contract, West Texas Intermediate, jumped more than two percent, to $114.71 per barrel, after reports of the Kharg island strikes.
Read on for the latest updates.
