Iran Targets Israel, Kuwait After Trump Gives Deadline for Deal

Kuwait and Israel said their air defenses were responding to the latest attacks from Iran, part of a war that broke out more than a month ago with US-Israeli strikes that triggered retaliation from Tehran.

The war spread the conflict across the Middle East and shook the global economy. Iranian forces have a tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz shipping lane, a vital conduit for oil and gas, and are striking economic targets in their Gulf neighbors that they see as linked to the U.S.-Israeli war effort.

Economic strikes are also going the other way. An Israeli or US attack on a petrochemical center in southwestern Iran killed five people on Saturday, according to the deputy governor of Khuzestan province.

“Remember I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN THE HORUZ THROAT,” Trump said on Truth Social on Saturday, referring to a March 26 ultimatum.

“Time is running out – 48 hours before Hell takes over.”

While Iran’s central military command rejected the ultimatum, General Ali Abdullahi Aliabadi said Trump’s threat was a “desperate, tense, unbalanced and stupid act.”

Echoing Trump’s language, he warned that “the gates of hell will open for you.”

Trump later released a video showing explosions lighting up the night sky and writing, “With this massive attack in Tehran, most of Iran’s Military Leaders… have been terminated along with many other things,” without specifying when it occurred.

– Call the airman –

Tehran said it shot down an F-15 fighter jet on Friday, and US media reported that US special forces rescued one of the two crew members, while the other remained missing.

The Iranian military also said it had shot down a US A-10 ground attack aircraft in the Gulf, while US media reported that the plane’s pilot had been rescued.

Washington has yet to publicly acknowledge either attack and provide no update on efforts to find the missing airman, who is also being sought by Iran.

On Saturday, the local Mehr news agency quoted Fattah Mohammadi, deputy governor of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, as saying that the search for the airman “involves military forces as well as popular forces and tribesmen and is still ongoing.”

“Last night people opened fire on enemy helicopters with rifles and did not allow them to land,” he added.

Footage posted on social media and verified by AFPTV shows Iranian police opening fire on a US helicopter in southwestern Iran as US forces searched for the airman.

– Bushehr nuclear power plant –

The death of a security guard in an attack near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant on Saturday led Russia, which partially built and helped run the plant, to announce the evacuation of 198 workers and condemn the strike as an “evil act.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that continued attacks on the facility on the southern coast could eventually lead to radioactive fallout that would “end life not in Tehran but in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) capitals.”

Bushehr is much closer to Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar than to the capital of Iran.

Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, wrote in

There were other attacks in Tehran, where an AFP journalist saw a thick haze of smoke covering the skyline.

– Economic sites were hit –

Strikes by all parties are increasingly targeting economic and industrial areas, raising fears of a wider disruption in global energy supplies.

A petrochemical center, a cement factory and a trade terminal on the Iran-Iraq border were hit in the US-Israeli attack on Saturday; It was reported that one person died here.

Iran has retaliated with missile and drone strikes against Israel and US allies in the Gulf.

Shrapnel from captured drones in Bahrain injured four people on Saturday, officials said, and two buildings in Dubai were struck by debris, including one that houses US cloud computing firm Oracle.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said on Friday it had hit more than 3,500 targets across Lebanon in the month since the latest round of war with Iran-backed Hezbollah began.

On Saturday night, Israel ordered residents to evacuate, warning that it would attack near the border crossing between Syria and Lebanon.

In Tel Aviv, hundreds of Israelis marched to protest the war and demand peace talks.