Trump says US-Israeli war on Iran will be over ‘very soon’
Al Jazeera
US president speaks in Florida after a call with Putin, who said he wanted to be ‘helpful’ on Middle East war.
United States President Donald Trump has said that he expects the war on Iran to be over “very soon” after dubbing the past 10 days of war, which have wrought devastation on Iran, a “short-term excursion”.
Addressing the media in Doral, Florida, Trump claimed that the US and Israel had struck 5,000 targets since the war began on February 28, when Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed.
Trump spoke as Iran’s hardliners staged a show of loyalty to new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei – the former supreme leader’s son – whose appointment was confirmed on Sunday amid US-Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, civilian areas and critical infrastructure, such as oil refineries and a desalination plant.
While Trump appeared to say hostilities would soon end, he nevertheless threatened a larger attack on Iran if it continued to block shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which has led to a major spike in oil prices, with Brent crude, the international benchmark, at one point topping $119 a barrel.
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