WASHINGTON DC – United States President Donald Trump says he is considering “winding down” the military operations in Iran even as his administration deploys 2,500 additional marines to the region and asks Congress for more money to fund the war.
In a social media post on Friday, Trump said the US was “getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East”. The mixed messages from Trump came after another climb in oil prices plunged the US stock markets. His administration also announced that it was lifting sanctions on Iranian oil already loaded on ships, a move aimed at wrangling the soaring fuel prices.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a post on X shortly after Trump’s message, said “the President and the Pentagon predicted it would take approximately 4-6 weeks to achieve this mission. “Saturday marks week 3 – and the US Armed Forces are doing an exceptional job,” Leavitt wrote. “Day by day, the Iranian Regime is being crippled, and their ability to threaten the United States and our allies is being significantly weakened.”
Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington, said four to six weeks is “the new number coming from the Trump administration about when Operation Epic Fury could possibly end”. “The White House has never been clear since the war began on February 28 about just how long the war was going to take, how many different platforms it would be fought on, and what would be the final metric for the US deciding to declare victory,” she said.
But the three-week-old war has shown no signs of abating, with the US-Israeli forces attacking the Iranian capital, Tehran, and nearby areas as the country welcomed the first day of the Persian new year, Nowruz. At least two people were killed by shelling on a residential area in the village of Dastak in northern Iran’s Kiashahr, Gilan province’s governor said.
Meanwhile, Iran fired two ballistic missiles at the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean, run jointly by the US and the United Kingdom, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Saturday. Diego Garcia, which is around 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometres) from Iranian territory, is one of the two bases the UK has allowed the United States to use for “defensive operations” in its war against Iran. A source at Britain’s defence ministry told news agency Reuters that the attack had occurred before it gave specific authorisation on Friday for the US to use the bases. Israel said Iranian forces continued to fire missiles at it early on Saturday, while Saudi Arabia said it downed 20 drones in just a couple of hours in the country’s eastern region – home to major oil installations. (Aljazeera)
