Iran war to last at least three more weeks: Israel army
Israel’s military spokesman said it planned to continue its campaign against Iran for at least three more weeks, while US Energy Secretary Chris Wright predicted the war would end in the “next few weeks.”
“There are thousands of targets before us,” Israeli army spokeswoman Effie Defrin told US broadcaster CNN.
“In coordination with our US allies, we are ready to plan at least until the Jewish holiday of Passover (about three weeks away). We even have deeper plans for three weeks after that,” he added.
Passover, an important date in the Jewish religious calendar, begins on the evening of April 1, when families gather to celebrate the liberation of Jews from Egyptian slavery thousands of years ago.
The Israeli military reported that its air force has carried out more than 400 waves of strikes, primarily targeting Iranian infrastructure, since the start of hostilities that resumed on February 28.
Defrin told CNN that the Israeli military “works to achieve our goals, not according to a stopwatch or a calendar.”
The Brigadier General said the aim was to seriously weaken the Iranian government.
Wright said Sunday he expects the U.S. war with Iran to end in the “next few weeks,” after which oil supplies will recover and energy costs will fall.
“I think this conflict will definitely end in the next few weeks – it could be sooner than that. But the conflict will end in the next few weeks and after that we will see a recovery in supply and a decline in prices,” Wright told the US broadcaster.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said that Iran will continue to defend itself against US and Israeli attacks until US President Donald Trump realizes that there is no path to victory.
“We are ready to defend ourselves no matter how long it takes,” Araqchi told CBS News.
“They will continue to do this until President Trump gets to the point where this is an illegal war with no victory,” he said.
When asked if Iran wanted a halt to hostilities, he said: “No, we never wanted a ceasefire, we never even wanted negotiations.”
Trump told NBC News that Iran appeared ready to make a deal to end the war, but “the terms are not good enough yet.”
In his interview with NBC, Trump raised the possibility that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei might have been killed, but Araqchi said that Khamenei was in good health and was managing the situation.
The war spread across the Middle East and killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon.
The United States is ignoring attempts by its Middle Eastern allies to start talks between the United States and Iran, three sources told Reuters, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards fired more missiles at Israel and three US bases in the region on Sunday.
via Reuters
