Trump warns ‘all hell will rain down’ on Iran if Hormuz strait is not reopened by deadline
Donald Trump has threatened “all hell will reign down” on Iran if it does not open the strait of Hormuz by Monday.
In a post on his Truth Social app, he wrote:
double quotation markRemember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!
On 27 February, the US president extended his deadline for Iran to open the key shipping route by 10 days to 6 April.
Updated at 10.48 EDT
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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Israel attacked Iran’s petrochemical plants following reports from Iranian media saying at least five people were killed in an attack on Mahshahr petrochemical zone.
“After we destroyed 70% of its ability to create steel, which is used as the raw material for the weapons used against us, today we attacked their petrochemical factories,” Netanyahu said in a video statement posted on his X account.
“I promised you that we will continue to crush the terrorist regime in Tehran, and that is exactly what we are doing,” he said.
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Dan Sabbagh
US search and rescue efforts for the missing second crew member of the downed F-15E fighter jet continued into a second day as Iran came under heavy bombing and Israel extended the war in Lebanon.
A pilot had been rescued on Friday after the F-15E Strike Eagle became the first US plane to be downed over Iran during the five-week-long war, but the second of the two-strong crew has not been accounted for.
Iranian media released pictures of a wreckage, including a distinctive F-15 tail fin, and a used ejector seat on Friday, with state media and businesses in the country offering a bounty if the missing crew member could be captured.
The US air force launched a massive search and rescue effort, using low-flying Pave Hawk helicopters and specialist C-130 Hercules transport.
Military pilots said the missing F-15 crew member would be trying to hide for as long as possible from the Iranian military and potentially seeking to transmit their location relative to a known secret point in the hope that US special forces coming in via helicopter would be able to rescue them.
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Updated at 14.41 EDT
Israel is preparing to attack Iranian energy facilities but is awaiting a green light from the US, a senior Israeli defense official told Reuters on Saturday, adding that any such attacks would likely come within the next week.
The comments came after US president Donald Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum, sharpening focus on whether Washington would back further Israeli military action against Iran.
After an airstrike hit the Shahid Beheshti University in the Iranian capital of Tehran, causing significant damage to academic infrastructure, photos are circulating showing the extent of destruction to the campus.
American and Israeli fighter jets targeted multiple strategic and civilian sites inside Iran’s capital on Friday afternoon, including Shahid Beheshti University, one of the country’s leading academic institutions, Iranian state media reported.
A view of the damaged Shahid Beheshti University following a military strike carried out by the United States and Israel on 4 April, 2026 in the Velenjak district of Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesA view of the damaged Shahid Beheshti University following a military strike carried out by the United States and Israel on 4 April, 2026 in the Velenjak district of Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesA man takes pictures of the destroyed study equipments lying amid the debris of a damaged building of the Shahid Beheshti University following a strike, in Tehran on 4 April, 2026. Photograph: AFP/Getty ImagesA view of the damaged Shahid Beheshti University following a military strike carried out by the United States and Israel on 4 April, 2026 in the Velenjak district of Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesShare
The next phase of the US military offensive against Iran is set to utilize nearly the nation’s entire global inventory of stealthy JASSM-ER cruise missiles, necessitating a massive diversion of stockpiles originally allocated to other regions, according to reporting from Bloomberg.
An order was issued in late March to pull the $1.5 million precision weapons from Pacific command centers, a source told Bloomberg. To sustain the air campaign, missiles currently stationed within the continental US and other global facilities are being rerouted to the US Central Command (Centcom) bases and RAF Fairford in the UK.
The JASSM-ER, or Joint Air-to-Surface Missile-Extended Range, is capable of flying more than 600 miles and was designed to hit targets at a safer distances to avoid an enemy’s air defenses.
Senator Lindsey Graham said on Saturday that he spoke directly with Trump and is “convinced” the president is prepared to follow through on threats to devastate Iran’s power infrastructure.
He warned that if Tehran fails to reach a diplomatic agreement or end its blockade of the strait of Hormuz by 6 April, the administration is prepared to strike major energy sites. Graham expressed his “total” support for the ultimatum, which follows a social media post from the president this morning informing the Iranian regime they have only 48 hours remaining.
“After speaking with President Trump this morning, I am completely convinced that he will use overwhelming military force against the regime if they continue to impede the Strait of Hormuz and refuse a diplomatic solution to achieve our military objectives,” Graham posted on Twitter/X. “If it’s not clear to Iran and others by now that President Trump means what he says then I don’t know when it will ever be.”
Updated at 12.54 EDT
Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya joint military command said Iraq would be exempt from any restrictions on transit through the strait of Hormuz, Iranian media reported on Saturday, signaling preferential treatment for Baghdad as Tehran tightens control over the strategic waterway.
Updated at 12.54 EDT
The Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, said on Saturday that the European Union should end sanctions on Russian oil and gas imports, take steps to restore Druzhba oil pipeline flows and end the war in Ukraine to tackle the energy crisis stemming from the war in Iran.
Fico said in a statement after a call with the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, that the EU should renew dialogue with Russia and ensure conditions so member states can get missing gas and oil supplies from all sources, including Russia.
Hungary and Slovakia’s leaders are outliers in the EU for maintaining relations with Moscow.
Oil prices have surged since US and Israeli strikes on Iran started on 28 February, holding up shipments from the Gulf and creating what the International Energy Agency called the biggest oil supply disruption in history.
Updated at 11.54 EDT
US federal agents have arrested the niece and grandniece of late Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani after the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, revoked their lawful permanent resident status, the state department said on Saturday.
“Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter are now in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” the state department said in a statement after Rubio revoked their green cards.
Officials allege that Soleimani Afshar celebrated military strikes against American personnel, praised Iran’s new supreme leader and labeled the US the “Great Satan”. The statement further claims she voiced “unflinching support” for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, all while maintaining a “lavish” lifestyle in Los Angeles, using her Instagram account as evidence.
In a statement on social media, Rubio confirmed that the mother-daughter pair are “pending removal” from the US, adding that “the Trump Administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes”.
In addition to the revocation of legal permanent resident (LPR) status for Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter, Afshar’s husband has also been formally prohibited from entering the US.
This follows a separate move by Rubio earlier this month to terminate the legal status of Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani – daughter of Ali Larijani, the former secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council – and her husband, Seyed Kalantar Motamedi. Both Ardeshir-Larijani and Motamedi have since departed the US and are under a permanent entry ban, according to the state department.
Updated at 11.29 EDT
Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles toward central Israel today, causing extensive damage to homes and wounding six people, Israeli media reported.
Sirens sounded in Ramat Gan, Givata’im, Bnei Brak, and Petah Tikvah, with images showing apartment buildings with blown out walls and windows.
Israeli security forces inspect damage at an apartment building struck by an Iranian missile in Petah Tikva. Photograph: Erik Marmor/Getty ImagesA damaged building that was hit by an Iranian strike in a residential neighbourhood in Ramat Gan. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty ImagesIsraeli rescue teams at the scene of an Iranian missile strike in Bnei Brak. Photograph: Oded Balilty/APShareTrump warns ‘all hell will rain down’ on Iran if Hormuz strait is not reopened by deadline
Donald Trump has threatened “all hell will reign down” on Iran if it does not open the strait of Hormuz by Monday.
In a post on his Truth Social app, he wrote:
double quotation markRemember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!
On 27 February, the US president extended his deadline for Iran to open the key shipping route by 10 days to 6 April.
Updated at 10.48 EDT
Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom has evacuated 198 staff members from the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, which was reportedly targeted in an airstrike earlier today, according to the Russian Interfax news agency.
Rosatom chief executive Alexei Likhachev was quoted as saying:
double quotation markAs planned, we began the main wave of evacuation today, about 20 minutes after the ill-fated strike. Buses moved from the Bushehr station toward the Iranian-Armenian border. 198 people, to be precise, the largest wave of the evacuation, are on the buses.
Earlier today, Iranian media reported that one person was killed and a support building near the plant was damaged in the attack, which it blamed on the US and Israel. Likhachev said the person killed was believed to be an Iranian citizen who was part of the plant’s security.
Rosatom has been evacuating staff from the plant since the war broke out on 28 February.
Iraq has closed the Shalamcheh border crossing with Iran after airstrikes on the Iranian side killed an Iraqi citizen, security sources told Reuters news agency.
A further five Iraqis were injured in the strike, the sources said, adding that Iraqi police recovered the body of a man and the wounded were taken to hospital, most in critical condition.
The crossing, located in southern Iraq’s Basra province, serves as one of the main routes for imports of vegetables and other food supplies from Iran, Reuters reported.
Iraqi security forces stand at the Shalamcheh border crossing with Iran. Photograph: Mohammed Aty/ReutersShare
Updated at 09.40 EDT
Further to the Iranian foreign minister’s statement earlier about Pakistan’s efforts to end the war (see post at 12:34), the Pakistani foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, has welcomed Abbas Araghchi’s “clarification”.
ShareAnalysis: Trump is using unabashed viciousness in his language against Iran
Steven Poole
On 23 March, Donald Trump said that if things didn’t go to his liking in Iran, “we just keep bombing our little hearts out”. A week later the US president told journalists on Air Force One: “You never know with Iran because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up.”
On 4 March, Pete Hegseth squirmed in pleasure as he described “death and destruction from the sky all day long”. Whatever happened to the subtle art of political euphemism?
The opposite of a euphemism is a dysphemism: a name for something that makes it sound maximally horrible. Politicians normally use dysphemisms for their opponents: people might be labelled “terrorists” or “fascists”, already engaged in “genocide” or threatening to nuke London within 15 minutes.
The Trump administration, however, revels in the use of dysphemism for its own actions. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight,” Hegseth said on 4 March. “We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”
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