US president Donald Trump said time was running out on his 10-day deadline for Iran to make a peace deal with the US and threatened that the Islamic Republic would face “all hell” in 48 hours.
“Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT,” Trump said in a social media post on Saturday. “Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to God!”
Trump had extended a five-day deadline to April 6th as preliminary discussions for peace talks got under way in late March. As attacks intensified from all sides, including Iran’s downing of two US military aircraft, Trump’s rhetoric has hardened from his recent attempts to find a way out of the growing conflict.
Trump has warned that if Iran doesn’t agree to his terms – which the government has rejected – and open the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping traffic out of the Gulf, the US would bomb the country’s civilian energy infrastructure, strikes that would likely constitute a war crime under international law.
In Iran the US continued search-and-rescue operations for a crew member from an F-15E fighter jet shot down by Iran on Friday, as Tehran kept up attacks on Gulf Arab states and Israel.
A second US combat aircraft reportedly crashed in the Gulf the same day. The incidents mark a significant blow for Washington as the war enters its sixth week with energy prices rising and little sign of an end to the conflict.
Trump declined to discuss the search-and-rescue operations in an interview with NBC News on Friday. He said the events wouldn’t affect any peace negotiations with Iran, according to a reporter who spoke to him on a call.
On Saturday Iran said US-Israeli strikes hit petrochemical plants and forced the evacuation of a large industrial zone. Other attacks targeting the perimeter of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant left one security staff member dead, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. The main sections of the facility, where Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom has workers, were unaffected, Tasnim said.
Iran continued to fire missiles and drones across much of the Middle East. Dubai authorities reported that debris from an aerial interception fell on the facade of an Oracle Corp building in Dubai Internet City on Saturday morning. They also reported debris hitting a building in the nearby Dubai Marina area. No fire or injuries were reported.
Iran fired more missiles at Israel. There was damage to a parking lot in Tel Aviv and to buildings in several outlying towns, authorities said, describing the impacts as caused by debris from interceptions. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The downing of the US jet came despite Trump’s claim in a prime time address on Wednesday that Iran no longer had anti-aircraft equipment. His military commanders, as well as defence secretary Pete Hegseth, have previously touted US air superiority over Iranian territory.
It’s the first known combat loss of a US or Israeli plane since the two countries began attacking Iran on February 28th. Three US aircraft were downed by friendly fire in Kuwait early in the war, while others have been destroyed or damaged at airbases by Iranian drones and missiles.
The US rescued one of the F-15 crew members, according to an American official who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive information. The status of the second person is unclear and Iranian media said Tehran offered a reward of about $66,000 to citizens who capture the person alive.
The lone pilot of the second plane – an A-10 Warthog – was safely rescued, the New York Times reported.
People look at the bridge in Karaj, near Tehran, damaged by US-Israeli air strikes. Photograph: Arash Khamooshi/The New York Times
Iran has continued to hit key energy infrastructure in the past two days. The UAE’s largest natural gas processing facility, Habshan, suspended operations after debris from a projectile interception sparked a fire. A drone attack set ablaze Kuwait’s Mina Al-Ahmadi oil refinery, which can process almost 350,000 barrels a day of crude.
The United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a member, said it detected 79 projectiles fired from Iran on Saturday, including 23 ballistic missiles. That was the highest number of projectiles since March 8th, according to data published by UAE authorities, and continued a trend of more numerous attacks over the last three days.
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The UAE, like other Gulf states and Israel, has intercepted the vast majority of Iranian attacks.
Israel’s military said it hit air defence sites and missile storage facilities in a wave of air strikes on Tehran on Friday. Iran said US-Israeli strikes hit a petrochemical zone in Mahshahr, in the southwestern Khuzestan province on Saturday. Authorities ordered the evacuation of all personnel and said any potential pollutants do not pose a risk to nearby cities, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Iran has shown little sign of accepting Trump’s demands for peace and has laid out its own conditions – most of them unacceptable to the US and Israel.
The New York Times, citing US intelligence reports, said Iranian personnel have been digging out underground missile bunkers and silos struck by American and Israeli bombs and returning them to operation hours after attacks. That casts doubt on the US and Israel’s ability to destroy Iran’s missile capability – one of their key war goals.
[ Iranians reel from US-Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructureOpens in new window ]
Despite Trump’s weekend threat, the president signalled this week he may be willing to pull US forces out of the conflict in two to three weeks, even if the Strait of Hormuz is still effectively shut.
US allies are stepping up efforts to ensure the waterway – through which one fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies normally flow – is reopened soon.
More than 40 of their foreign ministers met virtually on Thursday to discuss plans, signalling to Trump their concern about the closure.
On Saturday Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a social media post that he spoke by phone to Mark Rutte, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization saying the situation was heading for a deadlock and “urged the international community to step up efforts to end the war”.
More than 5,000 people have been killed in the conflict, almost three-quarters of them in Iran, according to government organisations and the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Just over 1,300 people have been killed in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting a parallel war against Iran-allied Hizbullah. – Bloomberg