Trump says US’s mission in Iran ‘substantially ahead’ and could last 4-5 weeks
Lucy Campbell
US president Donald Trump goes on:
An Iranian regime armed with long range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat to the Middle East, but also to the American people.
Our country itself would be under threat, and it was very nearly under threat.
He says the US is already “substantially ahead” of its time projections.
They projected four to five weeks at the beginning, but adds they have “capability to go far longer”, Trump says.
He adds that the US had predicted four weeks to terminate Iran’s military leadership, “and … that was done in about an hour, so we’re ahead of schedule there, by a lot.”
Further, Trump claims the objectives of the operation in Iran are “clear”.
They include “destroying Iran’s missile capabilities” and “annihilating their navy”, as well as preventing them from ever having nuclear weapons.
He adds that the country “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”.
Trump then goes on to cite the apparent lack of progress in diplomatic negotiations as further justification for the strikes.
And we thought we had a deal. But then they backed out and they came back and we thought we had a deal and they backed out. I said, you can’t deal with these people. You got to do it the right way.
Updated at 14.17 EST
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The Kuwaiti army said a sailor with its naval forces was killed during an “operation” by its armed forces. The army did not elaborate on the circumstances of his death.
ShareIsrael’s UN envoy says Iran operation will last ‘as long as it takes’
Israel and the US will not stop their military campaign against Iran until its objectives are achieve, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said earlier.
Speaking at UN headquarters in New York, Danon said the US and Israel would do everything necessary to ensure that Tehran does not have nuclear capabilities.
He said of the operation’s objectives are “clear”:
double quotation markNo nuclear weapons, no ballistic missile threat, destroy their navy and crash the regime’s proxy network.
The joint operation, he said, will last “as long as it takes” and Israel will do “whatever is necessary to protect our people and borders”.
double quotation markWe will not stop until we achieve our objectives.
Danon also accused Iran of “lashing out in desperation”. He said he believed freedom for the Iranian people “will come sooner than later”, and he hoped for a new leadership.
Danny Danon speaks to the press at UN headquarter in New York. Photograph: Jeenah Moon/ReutersShare
Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian has condemned US -Israeli strikes on Iranian schools and hospitals.
He said in a post on X:
double quotation markAttacks on hospitals strike at life itself. Attacks on schools target a nation’s future. Targeting patients and children blatantly violates humanitarian principles. The world must condemn it. I stand with my grieving nation. Iran will not remain silent or yield to these crimes.
A devastating strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, on Saturday killed 165 people and injured 96 others.
Updated at 14.29 EST
Iranian state media earlier confirmed that Mansoureh Khojaste Bagherzadeh, the wife of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, had also been killed “at home”.
Iranian outlets had previously reported that Bagherzadeh had slipped into a coma after suffering injuries in the US-Israeli attacks on Tehran on Saturday.
Khamenei’s daughter, grandchild and son-in-law were also killed, state media confirmed previously. Khamenei and his wife had six children, four sons and two daughters.
ShareUK ‘doesn’t believe in regime change from the skies’, says Starmer
Earlier, UK prime minister Keir Starmer said that his government does not “believe in regime change from the skies” as he set out to parliament why Britain will not join its closest military partner in offensive action against Iran – suggesting that to do so would be unlawful.
He told the House of Commons:
double quotation markThis government does not believe in regime change from the skies. The lessons of history have taught us that it is important when we make decisions like this, that we establish there is a lawful basis for what the United Kingdom is doing.
Last night, Starmer announced that the UK had agreed to a US request to use British military bases for “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile sites.
Per my colleague Andrew Sparrow, the UK PM has been under pressure from the left and the right for first saying the UK would not get involved in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and then allowing the US to use UK bases in their operations after criticism from Donald Trump.
Addressing that criticism before parliament on Monday afternoon, he said that Iran’s “outrageous actions” could not be ignored and that the UK would continue engaging in defensive actions while still not joining in on the strikes.
“I am not prepared to commit our military service people to action unless I am sure that what they’re doing is lawful,” Starmer added.
Keir Starmer making a statement in the House of Commons after allowing the US to strike Iranian missile sites from British bases. Photograph: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PAShare
Updated at 14.09 EST
US Central Command said in a post on X that last night, U.S. B-1 bombers “struck deep inside Iran to degrade Iranian ballistic missile capabilities”.
double quotation markAs the President stated, ‘we’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground’.
Updated at 13.57 EST
A fire ignited at a fuel storage station in Abu Dhabi after it was targeted by a drone was “promptly contained” today, the Abu Dhabi Media Office said.
“No injuries were reported and there was no impact on operations” after the fire at the Musaffah fuel tank terminal, according to the agency.
ShareThe day so far
Here’s a brief recap of the developments so far, on the third day of US and Israel attacks on Iran, and of Tehran continuing retaliatory strikes against US allies across the Gulf after the killing of its supreme leader on Saturday.
At least 555 people have been killed in Iran by the Israel-US attacks across 131 cities since Saturday, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society. US Central Command also said a fourth US service member has been killed.
Speaking at the White House for the first time since attacking Iran, Donald Trump said the US military is continuing to carry out large-scale operations in Iran and said the campaign could continue for four to five weeks or more. The US president claimed his objectives in Iran are “clear”. They include “destroying Iran’s missile capabilities” and “annihilating their navy”, as well as preventing them from ever having nuclear weapons; he said that Tehran “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”. He also cited the apparent lack of progress in diplomatic negotiations as further justification for the strikes.
The US president earlier did not rule out the possibility of boots on the ground in Iran if necessary, in an interview with the New York Post. “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground – like every president says ‘there will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump said. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.’” His defense secretary Pete Hegseth had earlier said there weren’t plans to have service members on the ground in Iran, but had also been reluctant to say whether this was the administration’s lasting stance. “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he told a Pentagon press conference earlier.
Trump also told CNN that the “big wave” of strikes against Iran is yet to come. “We haven’t even started hitting them hard,” the US president said. “We’re knocking the crap out of them.”
Hegseth said earlier that the US “didn’t start this war but we’re finishing it”, while also claiming that the US’s goal was not regime change in Iran (even though Trump has pushed for this and Hegesth himself then urged Iranians to “take advantage” of this opportunity for just that). Hegseth also indicated that the US did not plan to effect a democratic transition in Iran – and refused to establish a clear timeline for how long the US operation will continue. We have a story on that here.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 52 people in Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry said, and wounded more than 150. Israel argued that its strikes were necessary after Tehran’s ally Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel (which Israel intercepted) in response to the Israeli killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
Updated at 14.23 EST
Israeli strikes kill over 50 in Lebanon
Lebanon’s health ministry has said more people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.
It said the death toll is now at 52, with 154 wounded.
The Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah, one of Tehran’s principal allies in the Middle East, had earlier launched rockets towards Israel.
Israel then responded with sweeping airstrikes, which it said targeted the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut and struck senior militants.
The Lebanese state news agency NNA earlier had an initial tally of 31 people killed and 149 injured.
Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese president, condemned both attacks launched from Lebanon and Israel’s counterstrikes.
He warned that “persisting in using Lebanon once again as a platform for wars we have no part in will expose the country to new risks.”
The spiralling war in the Middle East is putting civilians in “grave danger”, the head of the Red Cross warned Monday, saying a large-scale conflict would outstrip any ability to help.
The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran has spread across the Middle East and beyond, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah entering the fray and a British military base in European Union member Cyprus coming under attack.
“Widening hostilities across the Middle East are putting civilian lives in grave danger,” said Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“The scale of major military operations flaring across the Middle East risks embroiling the region – and beyond – into another large-scale armed conflict that will overwhelm any humanitarian response.”
Britons are now being advised against “all but essential travel to Jordan”, as the situation in the Middle East continues to escalate.
The Foreign Office updated its travel advice for the country on Monday.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) website now reads:
double quotation markFCDO now advises against all but essential travel to Jordan.
FCDO continues to advise against all travel to within 3km of the border with Syria.