Trump says US will hit Iran 'very hard' after easing sanctions on Russian oil

DUBAI/BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: President Donald Trump said the U.S. was going to be hitting Iran "very hard over the next week", shortly after issuing a partial 30-day waiver for purchases of sanctioned Russian oil, hoping to ease prices fuelled by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Prices have been whipsawing on Trump's changing comments on the likely duration of the war, which has prompted Iran to attack vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of the world's oil. Trump has previously said the war is "complete", and also promised to guarantee the safety of vessels in the strait. In a Fox News interview aired on Friday, Trump said the U.S. would escort shipping there "if we needed to". Benchmark Brent crude eased about 0.6% to around $99.80, still up almost 40% since the start of the conflict.

WAR ON IRAN EXTENDS ACROSS MIDDLE EAST
After nearly two weeks of war, 2,000 people have been killed, most of them in Iran, but many also in Lebanon and a growing number in the Gulf, which has for the first time in decades of Middle East conflicts found itself on the front line.


Several million people have been displaced from their homes. As Israeli warplanes pounded Beirut's suburbs with air strikes, Lebanon's interior minister said authorities were unable to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people who have sought refuge in the capital.

Israel also dropped leaflets threatening Gaza-scale devastation as it deployed more troops to fight Iran-backed Hezbollah and warned of more attacks on Lebanon's infrastructure.

U.S. forces have also suffered casualties. The U.S. military confirmed that all six crew members aboard a refuelling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq were dead.

Iran fired more missiles and drones at Israel, and Iranian drones were reported flying into Kuwait, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman.

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The Israeli military launched strikes across Tehran. It said its air force had struck more than 200 targets in western and central Iran over the past day, including ballistic missile launchers, air defence systems and weapons production sites.

Iranian Press TV said a woman had been killed by an airstrike close to a rally in Tehran for Quds (Jerusalem) Day, one of many across Iran in support of Palestinians living in Israeli-occupied territory.

President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and security chief Ali Larijani all appeared in videos verified by Reuters openly attending the rally in a gesture of defiance, despite an assertion by U.S. Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth that the leadership were "cowering" underground.

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“People are not afraid of these attacks. As you can see, people have come out in this rain, under these hardships," judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said at the march. "We will not back down in any way." With gasoline and diesel prices rising at pumps in the United States and around the world, the U.S. on Thursday issued a 30-day licence for countries to buy Russian oil and petroleum products already at sea - where it is not uncommon for consignments to be sold or change their buyer. The International Energy Agency said on Thursday the war was creating the biggest oil supply disruption in history.

The war has sparked a critical shortage of cooking gas in India, a country with longstanding ties to Iran. Iran has allowed two Indian-flagged liquefied petroleum gas carriers to sail through the Strait of Hormuz, four sources told Reuters.

UKRAINE AND EUROPE ANGERED BY U.S. EASING SANCTIONS
The U.S. waiver on Russian oil was welcomed in Moscow but left Kyiv and its allies angry.

"Six members of the G7 expressed a very clear opinion that this was not the right signal," German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told a press conference in Norway. "We then learned this morning that the American government has apparently decided otherwise."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the move could provide Russia with $10 billion, adding: "It certainly does not help peace."

Trump said he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin may be helping Iran a "little bit" in the interview with Fox News Radio that aired on Friday.

"I think he might be helping him (Iran) a little bit, yeah, I guess. And he probably thinks we're helping Ukraine, right?" Trump told "The Brian Kilmeade Show", without specifying the nature of that help.

The Washington Post reported last week that Russia was providing Iran with targeting information that included locations of U.S. warships and aircraft in the Middle East. Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff later said Russia had denied doing so, and "we can take them at their word." Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, in his first public comments on Thursday, vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and urged neighbouring countries to close U.S. bases on their territory or risk being attacked themselves.

Khamenei's comments were read out by a television presenter and it was not clear why he had not appeared in person or recorded his comments. Hegseth told a news briefing that the U.S. knew he was "wounded and likely disfigured". An Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday that Khamenei was lightly injured but continuing to work. President Emmanuel Macron said one French soldier had been killed and several wounded during an attack in northern Iraq, hours after an Italian base in the same area was attacked. The French soldiers were providing training as part of an international coalition fighting Islamic State militants.