Iran-US battle newest: Trump claims battle can be over quickly however US hasn’t ‘won enough’ but
President Donald Trump has claimed the Iran conflict could soon be over and insisted the US is “far ahead” of its “initial timeline”.
Trump said the US has “already won” the Iran war, but added it hasn’t “won enough”.
“We’re knocking them out. We know where they all are. We’re knocking them out very quickly. We’re ahead of our initial timeline by a lot,” he said, giving an update from Florida.
Speaking to House Republicans earlier on Monday, he also said Iran was going to attack all of the Middle East and Israel, claiming: “Israel would have been wiped out.”
It comes after Israel launched new wide-scale strikes against Iran as fighting intensified on Monday.
Nato shot down an Iranian ballistic missile in the alliance’s airspace, Turkey’s defence ministry confirmed. Air defences in the eastern Mediterranean were activated after a missile fired from Iran entered Turkey’s airspace.
The ministry said it would take all necessary steps to protect itself without hesitation. Iran denied firing a missile towards Turkey last week.
Iran has elected Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei as its new leader, more than a week after his father was killed in an airstrike.
Oil prices fall after Trump signals war will end ‘very soon’
Global oil prices dropped sharply in early Tuesday trading in Asia, with Brent down about 8.5 per cent to $92.50 a barrel and US oil down around 9 per cent to $88.60.Prices remain roughly 30 per cent higher than before the war began.
The fall followed Donald Trump’s comments that the war will end “very soon”.
The dip boosted Asian markets, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 up 2.8 per cent and South Korea’s Kospi rising over 5 per cent.
Iran claims missiles growing more powerful and refutes declining numbers
An Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps spokesman, Ali Mohammad Naeini, accused US president Donald Trump of falsely claiming that Iranian missile launches were declining.
According to the semi-official Tasnim news agency, he claimed that Iran’s missiles were growing more powerful and larger than in the early days of the war.
A New York Times tally shows that Iran has launched over 2,000 drones and 500 ballistic missiles at American allies in the Middle East since the war began, with strikes continuing into early Tuesday.
This count does not include launches at Israel, where authorities have not shared such details.
Five members of Iranian women’s football team in Australia granted humanitarian visas
Five members of the Iranian women’s football team were granted humanitarian visas in Australia after their Asian Cup exit.
US president Donald Trump publicly urged Australia to “give asylum” to the women’s football team. “The US will take them if you won’t,” he added.
He later said he spoke with Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese, and wrote on his social media that “five have already been taken care of, and the rest are on their way”.
“In any event, the Prime Minister is doing a very good job having to do with this rather delicate situation. God bless Australia!” Trump said.
Australia’s immigration minister Tony Burke earlier said that the women “were moved to a safe location” by the police.
Australia’s humanitarian visa program provides permanent protection to refugees and individuals in urgent need, allowing them to live, work, and study freely in the country.
Trump says there will be ‘fire and fury’ if Iran disrupts Strait of Hormuz shipping
Donald Trump has said there will be “fire and fury” if Iran disrupts the shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
“If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,” Trump said online.
“Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them — But I hope, and pray, that it does not happen!” Trump added.
Oil prices soared to $115 a barrel on Monday but have fallen dramatically in early trading today after Trump’s claim that the war will be over “soon”.
White House war promo videos marry action movies, sports and video games to real-life combat footage
Peaceful and violent, in video game screenshots and movie clips and on professional playing fields, the icons come fast and furious in quick-cut footage — some of the most renowned slivers of 21st-century American popular culture, harnessed by the Trump administration to promote the freshly launched war with Iran.
The White House‘s social media feed has issued a series of pumped-up videos that mix real Iran war explosions with movie action heroes, gaming footage and bone-crunching football tackles, leading critics like a top cleric of the U.S. Catholic Church to condemn a trivialization of deadly real-life conflict.
Clips from Braveheart, Superman, Top Gun, Breaking Bad and Iron Man. All appear cut between declassified imagery of what is presumably the Iran war. Even the cartoon likeness of SpongeBob SquarePants is spliced in, asking, “You wanna see me do it again?” in between images of buildings, planes and vehicles blown up by American bombs. The caption on one bomb-heavy post: “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” — the title of a post-9/11 Toby Keith song about war that is subtitled “The Angry American.”
The fiction-meets-reality product of the White House’s aggressive social media team cuts a wide swath through cultural touchstones that resonate with young men, including the video games Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Halo. Two videos feature NFL and college football tackles and Major League Baseball home runs — with the cracks of bats interspersed with explosions.
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Egypt increases fuel prices up to 17 percent
Egypt has increased fuel prices up to 17 percent, the Associated Press reported, citing the Petroleum Ministry.
The price of crude oil surged more than $100 a barrel Monday amid the war in Iran.
IRGC: ‘Iran will determine when the war ends’
Ali Mohammad Naini, a spokesperson for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has said, “Iran will determine when the war ends,” the Associated Press reported, citing Iranian state media.
US President Donald Trump has said its military campaign in Iran may be “pretty well complete”, noting America has “wiped every single force in Iran out, very completely”.
Democrat US sentors demand hearings with defence and state secretary
A group of Democratic US sentors have demanded hearings with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio amid the Iran war.
“We’re demanding to have a real, transparent oversight of what’s going on with this war and ask the hard questions,” Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey said in a video posted to X Monday.
“We are demanding a real fight in Congress, a real debate, real oversight, real checks and balances. And if not, I’m saying no more business as usual in Congress”, Booker added.
A War Powers Resolution aimed at stopping US President Donald Trump from launching future attacks on Iran without congressional approval failed last week in the Republican-led Senate.
US senator says Trump ‘has no plan or vision’ for Iran war
US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, has said President Donald Trump “has no plan or vision” for the Iran war.
“He can’t articulate a plan or a vision because he has no plan or vision. He can’t even decide whether or not the country is at war. He’s risking the world economy and the lives of millions on whims and vibes”, Schumer wrote on X Monday night.
Schumer’s comments come after Trump and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth gave different outlooks on the timeline of the Iran war.
Source: independent.co.uk
