Trump warns of new strikes on Iran as war hits 2-week mark

The U.S. said it had stepped up strikes on Iran to unprecedented levels as the war that’s engulfed the Middle East hit the two-week mark and continued to upend energy flows and global markets.

The campaign is “on plan to defeat, destroy, disable all of their meaningful military capabilities at a pace the world has never seen before,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a briefing at the Pentagon. Friday marked the largest attacks yet against the Islamic Republic, with the U.S.-Israeli alliance hitting around 15,000 targets since the war began, he added.

While recent comments from American President Donald Trump and Iran’s new leader have suggested there will be no letup in the conflict any time soon, pressure is building in the U.S. for a deescalation given the mounting death toll and surge in oil prices. Brent crude has climbed to around $100 a barrel because of Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Thursday said the Islamic Republic would seek to ensure the strait remains effectively closed. In his first public comments since succeeding his father, he also warned Tehran would look to open other fronts in the war if the U.S. and Israel persist with their attacks.

Almost 2,600 people have died in the war, most of them in Iran, latest tolls from officials and non-government agencies show. The Hormuz waterway — through which around one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural-gas exports flows — has been brought to a near standstill.

A U.S. refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq and four of the six crew members aboard were killed, the American military said, adding that the loss of the plane wasn’t due to enemy or friendly fire. That brought to 11 the number of U.S. service members who have died so far.

“We are really in a moment of flux where we don’t know yet precisely in which direction this is going to go,” Kim Ghattas, an author on the Middle East, told Bloomberg TV on Friday. “This Iranian regime and its axis have definitely been weakened over the last two years, but they’re still able to fight back and impose and inflict tremendous economic damage to the region, to the world economy.”

The dollar, perceived as a haven in times of turmoil, has gained against all the other 16 major currencies since the war began. Most stocks and government bonds have sold off, with emerging markets particularly hard hit.

Pro-government rallies were held across Iran on Friday to mark Quds Day, an annual pro-Palestinian event. An explosion was reported a few blocks away from a march in Tehran, and Iran’s Tasnim news agency said a woman was killed in a U.S.-Israeli attack.

Pictures posted on social media showed Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and several government ministers participating in the proceedings.

Airstrikes on the Islamic Republic and Tehran’s retaliation across the Arab Gulf and against Israel continued into Friday.

A French military staffer was killed in an attack in Iraq’s Erbil region, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an X post. Reuters reported at least six French soldiers were wounded in the drone strike.

Turkey’s defense ministry said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization neutralized an Iranian ballistic missile that entered the country’s airspace on Friday, the third such interception since March 4. Ankara has cautioned Iran against targeting its soil and expanding the scope of the conflict.

In Oman, two people were killed after drones crashed in the Sohar region, state media said on Friday. Oman’s Port of Sohar has suspended operations. Dubai, the financial hub of the United Arab Emirates, reported missile threats and Saudi Arabia intercepted more than a dozen drones in its airspace.

Hegseth said Iran’s supreme leader was “likely disfigured” in the U.S.-Israeli campaign, and the fact that he had only released a written statement suggested his injuries prevented him from making public appearances.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Central Command has assigned investigators to look into an attack on an all-girls elementary school on the first day of strikes on Iran that killed about 180 people.

Several backchannels have opened between Tehran and U.S. allies in recent days about reopening the Strait of Hormuz, according to people familiar with the matter, but they were downbeat the attempts would succeed.

Saudi Arabia, Oman and Turkey are leading ongoing mediation efforts, with the support of European countries and France taking a lead role. Qatar backed off from talks after it came under repeated attack.

Reuters cited UAE’s State Minister Lana Nusseibeh as saying she was confident the war will end in a negotiated settlement and that Trump “will lead us all to that ⁠moment” when he was ready to.

Strikes on three commercial ships in the Arabian Gulf over the past two days have highlighted the risk of expanding maritime-transport disruptions.

The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted the flow of millions of barrels of oil a day, causing what the International Energy Agency described as the biggest hit to global supply on record. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have all had to curb crude output.

The U.S. and Israel first launched airstrikes on Iran on Feb. 28, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, after accusing the Islamic Republic of pursuing nuclear weapons — an allegation Tehran has long denied. Iran struck back, firing missiles and drones at Israel and nations across the Gulf, plunging the region into crisis.

Some 1,858 people died in Iran during the first 12 days of fighting, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Almost 700 people have been killed in Lebanon, where Israel is battling Iran-aligned Hezbollah. A dozen Israeli civilians and two soldiers have been killed, according to the health ministry. Several more people in other Arab countries have also died.

--------

—With assistance from Dan Williams, Alisa Odenheimer, Thomas Hall, Joumanna Bercetche, Shruthi Rajendran and Dana Khraiche.