Washington (United States) (AFP) – US President Donald Trump made an expletive-filled threat Sunday to destroy Iran’s vital civilian infrastructure, demanding Tehran bow to his demands for a deal to reopen the Gulf to shipping and end the Middle East war. As Christians marked Easter, the US leader revived warnings of air strikes on Iranian power plants and bridges, after celebrating the rescue of a wounded airman whose F-15 fighter jet went down inside Iran.
Iranian images showed wreckage of several aircraft, but Tehran did not deny US forces rescued the officer, who sheltered in a mountainous area while American special forces and Iranian troops raced to find him. The war, which erupted on February 28 with deadly US-Israeli strikes on Tehran, has engulfed the Middle East and convulsed the global economy. Iranian missiles have hit Israeli cities and economic infrastructure in the Gulf, sending world energy prices soaring. Iran has also effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for oil and gas, provoking Trump to demand Sunday: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.” Later, in a terse follow-up post, the president apparently set a new deadline for Iran to comply: “Tuesday, 8:00 PM” (midnight GMT).
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” he declared, drawing a rebuke from Tehran, which accused Trump of taking orders from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Your reckless moves are dragging the United States into a living HELL for every single family, and our whole region is going to burn because you insist on following Netanyahu’s commands,” Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, posted on social media. Iran’s ally Russia also condemned Trump’s threat. Moscow said Washington should abandon “the language of ultimatums” and return to negotiations, according to a Russian readout of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s latest call with his Iranian counterpart.
Many residents of Tehran seemed indifferent to Trump’s invective, with young Iranians exercising, flying kites, and holding picnics in a large park in the city’s west Sunday.
US media reported on details of the rescue of the US airman, a weapons systems officer. The New York Times said he was equipped with a pistol, a beacon, and a secure communications device to coordinate with rescuers. Two of the aircraft meant to transport him and his rescuers to safety were stuck in a remote base in Iran and had to be destroyed to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands, The Times and CBS reported. US forces then used three other transport planes to carry the airman and his rescuers out of Iran, the reports said. Iran’s military said it had destroyed four US aircraft involved in the operation, which it said had made use of an abandoned airport in southern Isfahan province. Iranian media reported five people were killed in strikes during the operation. Footage released by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was presented as showing charred, smoking wreckage of an American aircraft scattered across a desert area. Iran has said its forces downed the fighter jet and the crew ejected, while US media reported only that the plane had been shot down. Washington has not confirmed what caused the plane to come down.
Critical infrastructure across the Gulf came under attack from Iran again on Sunday, with damage reported at civilian facilities in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait. UAE authorities in Sharjah said they were dealing with an “incident” in the key port of Khor Fakkan following an Iranian strike. UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash warned Iran that targeting its Arab neighbors “will actually concretize the American role… It will not reduce it.” We will also see Israeli influence become more prominent in the Gulf, not less,” he added, confirming the UAE was ready to “join any American-led effort, international effort to secure navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.”
On another front, Lebanon has increasingly been drawn into the conflict since the Iran-backed Hezbollah group began targeting Israel. Israel has struck back and pushed its ground forces into southern Lebanon, with the army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir visiting troops there Sunday and pledging to intensify strikes against Hezbollah. UN peacekeepers in Lebanon have warned that attacks by Israel and Hezbollah near its positions “could potentially draw return fire.” The Israeli military and medics said a missile fired from Iran hit a residential building in the northern city of Haifa, injuring four people. The war has cast a shadow over Easter Sunday celebrations for Christians in Lebanon and across the region. The usually lively alleyways of Jerusalem’s Old City were unusually silent Sunday. Israeli authorities restricted access to the Holy Sepulchre, where worshippers commemorate Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.
“It’s very hard for all of us because it’s our holiday… It’s really hard to want to pray but to come here and find nothing. Everything is closed,” said Christina Toderas, 44, from Romania. In Beirut, hymn singers at a church in the northern suburb of Jdeideh struggled to be heard above the roar of Israeli fighter jets flying low over the city and bombing its southern suburbs. In his Easter blessing at the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV urged “those who have the power to unleash wars” to “choose peace” instead and criticized global indifference to “the deaths of thousands.”
© 2024 AFP
