Iran vows revenge for Larijani as Trump says war may end soon

Iranian attacks on Israel and Arab states in the Persian Gulf continued overnight into Wednesday, while President Donald Trump said the US could end the war with the Islamic Republic “in the near future.”

Iran launched fresh waves of missile and drone attacks, targeting the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. It also struck Tel Aviv and killed two people.

The attacks followed Iran confirming the assassination of its security chief, Ali Larijani, in an Israeli strike. The country showed no sign of backing down on the 19th day of a war that has upended global energy flows and bond markets.

Iran’s military vowed to avenge the killing of Larijani as well as that of Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij paramilitary unit, which the government uses to maintain internal security in Iran. They died in the same strike, Israel said.

The US said it dropped 5 000-pound bunker-buster munitions on Iranian missile sites near the Strait of Hormuz late on Tuesday. That’s part of Trump’s efforts to reopen the vital waterway to commercial vessels. It’s effectively been closed since the war started, forcing countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iraq to cut oil production and pushing crude prices above $100 a barrel.

Iran has de facto control over which ships transit the Strait of Hormuz, with some transiting the chokepoint by tracking close to the Iranian coast. Most ships exiting are heading to places such as China — which buys almost all Iran’s oil — and India. Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the powerful speaker of Iran’s parliament, said the strait “won’t return to its pre-war status.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi echoes those comments.

“We need to design new arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz and the way ships pass through it in the future,” he said to Al Jazeera. The rules should “guarantee that safe passage through the strait takes place under specific conditions.”

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‘Near Future’

Trump, meanwhile, again said the US would soon be ready to end the war.

“If we left right now, it would take them 10 years to rebuild,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday. “But we’re not ready to leave yet. But we’ll be leaving in the near future.”

Trump threatened to expand strikes on Iran’s main oil export hub on Kharg Island after weekend attacks on military installations there. The president has abandoned efforts to recruit partners from Europe and Asia to help reopen Hormuz with naval escorts. That was after most countries showed little willingness to join such a mission, which military analysts say would be risky without a ceasefire.

The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier — the world’s biggest — is withdrawing from the conflict and heading back to port after a fire broke out in its laundry area, leaving at least two sailors injured. The carrier will sail from the Red Sea to Souda Bay on the Greek island of Crete.

In Iran, a strike hit an area at the Bushehr nuclear power plant, according to Russia’s state atomic firm Rosatom, which operates the facility. No Rosatom employees were injured, and about 480 Russian citizens remain at the plant, Likhachev said, according to Russia’s Tass news agency.

Iran’s strikes on energy facilities and ports across the Gulf have continued this week. It set a massive natural gas field in the UAE ablaze Monday as it stepped up attacks on key energy sites, the first time the Islamic Republic has damaged an oil or gas upstream facility in the neighboring country during the war.

Anwar Gargash, a top adviser to UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, said Iran miscalculated by firing upon Arab states in the Gulf. The attacks will drive them closer to Israel and the US while demonstrating why the region can’t accept Iranian nuclear and missile programs, Gargash said.

He signaled the UAE may be willing to help secure the Hormuz Strait.

“This is the responsibility not only of the United States, but of countries in Asia, countries in the region, countries in Europe,” he said.

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The US president scolded North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies for their reluctance to join such an effort. “I’ve long said I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us,” Trump said. “This was a great test because we don’t need them, but they should have been there.”

Trump also reiterated he started the war — which began with US and Israeli bombings of Iran on February 28 — to disarm a potent nuclear threat. He claimed, without providing evidence, that Iran was just two weeks away from acquiring a weapon that they would have used “very gladly.” Iran has long denied pursuing atomic weapons and nuclear experts mostly disagree it could have built weapons that quickly.

US gasoline prices have soared in recent weeks, rising to around $3.79 a gallon, according to the American Automobile Association. That’s the highest level since October 2023 and is piling pressure on the administration ahead of the November midterm elections. White House officials are claiming energy prices will drop rapidly once the war ends and are urging Americans to be patient.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC that the US’s expectation is still for a “four-to-six week operation,” while acknowledging that a longer war could “hurt consumers.”

In the latest sign of growing domestic opposition to the conflict, Joe Kent, a top counterterrorism official, announced he is resigning in protest of the war, arguing that Israel had dragged the US into the conflict.

Asked about the resignation, Trump countered that Iran indeed had been a threat. He said Kent, a staunch MAGA Republican, was “a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security.”

In parallel with the war in Iran, Israel has stepped up an offensive in Lebanon, where it’s fighting the Tehran-backed Hezbollah militant group. Israeli strikes in the country have killed more than 900 people, according to the Lebanese government.

That brings the war’s death toll to more than 4 000, with most of the fatalities in Iran. Dozens of others were killed in the rest of the Middle East, while the US has lost 13 military personnel.

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