TEHRAN, Iran \u2014 U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday made expletive-filled threats against Iran and its infrastructure if it doesn\u2019t open the Strait of Hormuz by his Tuesday deadline, after American forces rescued a wounded aviator whose Iran-downed plane fell behind enemy lines.<\/p>\n
A defiant Iran struck infrastructure targets in neighbouring Gulf Arab countries and threatened to restrict another heavily used regional waterway, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the Arabian Peninsula.<\/p>\n
Trump on social media vowed to hit Iran\u2019s power plants and bridges and said the country would be \u201cliving in Hell\u201d if the Strait of Hormuz, crucial for global trade, isn\u2019t opened. He ended with \u201cPraise be to Allah.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has issued such deadlines before but extended them when mediators have claimed progress toward ending the war, which has killed thousands, shaken global markets, and spiked fuel prices in just over five weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems Trump has become a phenomenon that neither Iranians nor Americans are able to fully analyze,\u201d Iranian Culture Minister Sayed Reza Salihi-Amiri told visiting Associated Press journalists in an interview in Tehran, adding that the U.S. president \u201cconstantly shifts between contradictory positions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both sides have threatened and hit civilian targets like oil fields and desalination plants critical for drinking water. Iran\u2019s UN mission called Trump\u2019s threat \u201cclear evidence of intent to commit war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s joint military command warned of stepped-up attacks on regional oil and civilian infrastructure if the U.S. and Israel attack such targets there, according to state television.<\/p>\n
The laws of armed conflict allow attacks on civilian infrastructure only if the military advantage outweighs the civilian harm, legal scholars say. It\u2019s considered a high bar to clear, and causing excessive suffering to civilians can constitute a war crime.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ZUIHTD6K5NFYREJNQVRZQV7HEU.jpg\")
Iran War In this image provided by Sepahnews, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s official website, wreckage is shown at what Iran’s state TV claimed was the site of a downed American transport plane and two helicopters involved in a rescue operation, in Isfahan province, Iran, April, 2026. (Sepahnews via AP) U.S. describes a dramatic rescue<\/p>\n
An intense search followed Friday\u2019s crash of the F-15E Strike Eagle, while Iran promised a reward for the \u201cenemy pilot.\u201d It was the first known American aircraft to crash in Iranian territory since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28.<\/p>\n
Trump said that the service member was \u201cseriously wounded and really brave\u201d and rescued from \u201cdeep inside the mountains\u201d in an operation involving dozens of armed aircraft. He said a second crew member was rescued in \u201cbroad daylight\u201d within hours of the crash.<\/p>\n
A senior U.S. administration official said that before locating the second aviator, the CIA spread word inside Iran that U.S. forces had found him and were moving him out, creating confusion for Iranians. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.<\/p>\n
Iran also shot down another U.S. military plane Friday, demonstrating the perils of the bombing campaign and the ability of Iran\u2019s degraded military to hit back. Neither the status of the A-10 attack aircraft\u2019s crew nor where it crashed is known.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Iran\u2019s state television aired a video showing what it claimed were parts of U.S. aircraft — a transport plane and two helicopters — shot down by Iranian forces during the rescue operation.<\/p>\n
However, a regional intelligence official briefed on the mission told the AP that the U.S. military blew up two transport planes because of a technical malfunction and brought in additional aircraft to complete the rescue. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the covert mission.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s joint military command later said the U.S. bombarded its own aircraft to \u201cprevent embarrassment for President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two Black Hawk helicopters were hit but navigated to safe airspace, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775469790_484_ZNJNAWRCELVIQ467CZSFGI7UJE.jpg\")
In this image provided by Sepahnews, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s official website, wreckage is shown at what Iran’s state TV claimed was the site of a downed American transport plane and two helicopters involved in a rescue operation, in Isfaha… In this image provided by Sepahnews, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s official website, wreckage is shown at what Iran’s state TV claimed was the site of a downed American transport plane and two helicopters involved in a rescue operation, in Isfahan province, Iran, April, 2026. (Sepahnews via AP) Diplomatic efforts continue<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s deadline centres on alarm over Iran\u2019s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, critical for global shipments of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf as well as humanitarian supplies. Some ships have paid Iran for passage.<\/p>\n
An Iranian presidential spokesperson, Seyyed Mohammad Mehdi Tabatabaei, said on social media that the strait can reopen only if some transit revenues compensate Iran for war damages.<\/p>\n
A top Iranian adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, warned on social media that Tehran also could disrupt trade on the Bab el-Mandeb, a key chokepoint to and from the Red Sea.<\/p>\n
Diplomatic efforts continued. Oman\u2019s Foreign Ministry said that deputy foreign ministers and experts from Iran and Oman met to discuss proposals to ensure \u201csmooth transit\u201d through the strait. <\/p>\n
Egypt said that Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty had spoken by phone with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and with Turkish and Pakistani counterparts. Russia said that Araghchi also spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.<\/p>\n
Bahrain urged the UN Security Council to act on its draft proposal with language authorizing defensive action to ensure safe passage through the strait.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/L3MTL2Z3OVDIXJ65JN4EDL7FSU.jpg\")
Iran War In this image provided by Sepahnews, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s official website, black smoke rises into the air at what Iran’s state TV claimed was the site where an American transport plane and two helicopters involved in a rescue operation were shot down, in Isfahan province, Iran, April, 2026. (Sepahnews via AP) Airstrikes hit Iran<\/p>\n
Before dawn Monday, a series of airstrikes hit Iran\u2019s capital, Tehran. Explosions rang out into the night, though it wasn\u2019t immediately clear what had been struck. The sound of low-flying fighter jets could be heard off and on for hours.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere in Iran, an airstrike killed at least five people in a residential area of Qom, the state-run IRAN daily newspaper said in an online message. Qom is a Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran. It wasn\u2019t unclear what the target of the strike was.<\/p>\n
In the United Arab Emirates, authorities said that four people — one Nepali and three Pakistani — were hurt in fires caused by debris from the interception of an Iranian projectile at Khor Fakkan port, and interception debris caused fires at a petrochemical plant in Ruwais, halting operations.<\/p>\n
In Kuwait, Iranian drone attacks caused significant damage to power plants and a petrochemical plant. They also put a water desalination station out of service, according to the Ministry of Electricity.<\/p>\n
In Bahrain, a drone attack caused a fire at one of the national oil company\u2019s storage facilities and a state-run petrochemical plant, the kingdom\u2019s official news agency said.<\/p>\n
In Israel, rescue authorities searched for three people in the northern city of Haifa after an apartment building was hit. It wasn\u2019t immediately clear what struck it.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, more than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began.<\/p>\n
In Lebanon, whose health ministry said an Israeli strike without warning killed four people in Beirut, more than 1,400 people have been killed and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there while targeting Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants.<\/p>\n
In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.<\/p>\n
By Matthew Lee, Bassem Mroue, Konstantin Toropin And Samy Magdy<\/p>\n
Lee and Toropin reported from Washington, Metz from Jerusalem and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Lisa Mascaro and Seung Min Kim in Washington; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Farnoush Amiri in New York; and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEHRAN, Iran \u2014 U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday made expletive-filled threats against Iran and its infrastructure if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,77,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-585599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-international","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}