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Donald Trump will hit Iran ‘harder than they have ever been hit before’ unless Tehran accepts it has been ‘defeated militarily’, the White House has warned.
The president’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump ‘does not bluff and he is prepared to unleash hell’, adding: ‘Iran should not miscalculate again.’
Earlier, Iran dismissed an American 15-point plan to end the war and launched more attacks on Israel and Gulf Arab countries.
Iran’s English-language state television broadcaster quoted an anonymous official as saying Tehran will end the conflict ‘when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met’.
Talks with Iran were still underway, Leavitt said.
‘Talks continue. They are productive, as the President said on Monday, and they continue to be,’ she told reporters.
But she added: ‘If Iran fails to accept the reality of the current moment, if they fail to understand that they have been defeated militarily, and will continue to be, President Trump will ensure they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before.’
A M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) conducting live-fire missions during ‘Operation Epic Fury’ (Picture: US Army/AFP via Getty)
Smoke rises from what the US Central Command (CENTCOM) says is a strike on Iranian targets (Picture: Centcom/Reuters)
Leavitt declined to identify which Iranian or Iranians the administration is negotiating with.
The press secretary also declined to comment on a 15-point ceasefire plan put forward by the United States that was rejected by Iran.
She cautioned the White House press pack about ‘reporting about speculative points or speculative plans from anonymous sources’.
‘The White House never confirmed that full plan,’ Leavitt said, adding that ‘there are elements of truth to it, but some of the stories I read were not entirely factual’.
Publicly, Iranian officials poured withering scorn on the prospect of any negotiations with the Trump administration.
But an apparent delay in providing a formal response to Pakistan, which delivered a 15-point proposal on behalf of Washington, appeared to signal that at least some figures in Tehran may be considering it.
US sailors taxiing an F/A-18F Super Hornet, attached to Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 41, on the flight deck aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (Picture: DVIDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Global equity markets regained some ground while oil prices dipped on Wednesday after reports that Washington had sent the proposal to Iran, with investors hoping for an end to a war that has disrupted global energy supplies and risks fuelling inflation.
The Pentagon is meanwhile planning to send thousands of airborne troops to the Gulf to give Trump more options to order a ground assault, sources have told Reuters.
They would add to two contingents of Marines already on their way. The first Marine unit, aboard a huge amphibious assault ship, could arrive around the end of the month.
Iran could open a new front at the mouth of the Red Sea if attacks are carried out on its territory, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency cited an unnamed military source as saying on Wednesday.
The source said that Iran has the capability to pose a ‘credible threat’ in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which lies between Yemen and Djibouti.
Iran’s parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said his country would attack an unnamed neighbouring country if it cooperated with efforts by ‘the enemies’ to occupy one of its islands.
Since the start of what the US calls ‘Operation Epic Fury’, Iran has attacked countries that host US bases and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday warned that the ‘world is staring down the barrel of a wider war’ in the region.
‘It is time to stop climbing the escalation ladder – and start climbing the diplomatic ladder,’ he said at the UN headquarters in New York.
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