Trump rejects settling Iran war, raises prospect of killing all its potential leaders

By Maya Gebeily, Alexander Cornwell, Nandita Bose and Parisa Hafezi

BEIRUT/MIAMI/TEL AVIV/DUBAI, March 8 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said he was not interested in negotiating with Iran and raised the possibility that the Iran war could end only when Tehran no longer has a functioning army or any leadership in power.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday, Trump said the airstrike could render negotiations moot if all of Iran’s potential leaders are killed and the Iranian military is destroyed.

“I don’t think at some point there will be anyone left to say, ‘We surrender,'” Trump said.

THE IRANIAN PRESIDENT’S APOLOGY LED TO ACTION

Israel and Iran carried out several attacks on Saturday as the US-Israeli war against Iran entered its second week. Iran’s president apologized to neighboring countries for attacks on US facilities in those countries in an attempt to calm anger in the Gulf, but sparked criticism from hardliners at home.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said, “I personally apologize to neighboring countries affected by Iran’s actions,” and urged them not to participate in US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

Describing Trump’s demand for the unconditional surrender of the Islamic Republic as “a dream”, Trump said the interim leadership council agreed to suspend attacks on nearby countries as long as attacks against Iran do not come from its own territory.

While there were possible divisions within the Iranian leadership over Pezeshkian’s words, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised speech that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who laid down their weapons would not be harmed.

Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on state television that there was no disagreement among Iranian officials over the management of the war.

An explosion at the US embassy in Oslo early Sunday caused minor damage but no injuries, Norwegian police said. Eyewitnesses told the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang that smoke was rising from around the embassy building. It is not yet clear what caused the explosion and who was involved.

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Saudi Arabia has told Tehran that Iran’s ongoing attacks on the kingdom and its energy sector could prompt Riyadh to respond in kind, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Saudi Arabia has foiled a drone attack on Riyadh’s diplomatic zone, the Saudi defense ministry said early Sunday. No injuries were reported.

Pezeshkian’s comments sparked political turmoil in Iran, prompting his office to reiterate that the Iranian military would respond harshly to attacks from US bases in the region.

Hours later, the president repeated his statement on social media but did not apologize in a speech that angered hardliners, including the powerful Revolutionary Guard.

Judiciary chief Mohseni-Ejei, a hardline member of the three-man council that temporarily holds the powers of the supreme leader, said the territory of some regional countries was being used for attacks against Iran and that retaliatory attacks would continue.

Hours after Pezeshkian’s statement, the Revolutionary Guard announced that its “UAVs hit a US air combat center near Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.” Reuters could not independently verify this report.

ISRAEL WARNES LEBANON TO LINING HIZBOLLA

Fuel storage tanks belonging to Kuwait International Airport were targeted in a drone attack, the Kuwaiti military said on Saturday.

In Iran, local news agencies, quoting a source in Iran’s Oil Ministry, said fuel depots were hit in three regions, including Karaj, west of Tehran.

Iranian state media reported that the Revolutionary Guard also targeted US forces at a base in Bahrain and explosions were also heard in Doha.

Tehran responded to the US-Israeli war on Iran by striking Israel and Gulf Arab countries that host US military facilities. Israel launched new attacks on Lebanon after the Iran-affiliated militia group Hezbollah crossed the border.

As the conflict spread, Israel warned Lebanon that there would be a “very heavy price” if it did not rein in militants of Iran’s ally Hezbollah; pounded the group’s strongholds with airstrikes and launched a “deadly airstrike” in the east.

Reuters video showed more buildings collapsed into smoking piles of rubble, dust and tangled wires in Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Saturday morning.

The death toll in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since Monday rose to around 300 after at least four people were killed in an Israeli attack on 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 Israeli-Hezbollah hostilities resumed last week.

US-Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians and injured thousands more, according to Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani. Large explosions were heard in parts of Tehran, state media reported, while Israel said it hit Iran’s missile sites and command centers.

10 people lost their lives in Iran’s attacks in Israel. At least six US soldiers were killed. Their remains arrived at the Air Force base in Delaware on Saturday.

Iran’s apparent maximum chaos strategy has increased the cost of the conflict by raising energy prices and damaging global business and logistics links.

Kuwait’s national oil company began cutting production on Saturday, adding to earlier oil and gas cuts in Iraq and Qatar.

The war shook global markets, and with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, oil prices reached their highest levels in years.

Radical clerics have called for a quick election of a new religious leader, with meetings to be held on Sunday, Iranian media reported on Saturday.

(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, Aaron McNicholas in Jerusalem and ​Reuters bureaus; Writing by William Maclean, Matthias Williams, Richard Cowan and Alistair Bell; Editing by Rod Nickel and William Mallard)