Trump: Will hit Iran hard tonight
Donald Trump threatens new heavy attacks on Iran on Friday night, and warns that the US could take over Iranian oil infrastructure.
But he also says that he does not want to deploy American troops on the ground in Iran.
The US will hit Iran "very hard", Trump writes on Truth Social.
Trump also threatens to take total control of Iran's oil and gas market, "like we did with Venezuela" and adds that the US "in the not too distant future" will also take over the island of Kharg, which plays a key role in Iran's oil industry, as well as other oil infrastructure.
In an interview on Fox News made just minutes after the post, he is not as sure about a ground operation against the island. He claims there that he does not want to deploy ground troops, but “if I wanted to, we could deploy a small group of soldiers that could cover the entire island.”
The difficultly taken island
The president has said several times before that he will attack Kharg, in his attempts to get Iran to agree to his demands to end the war that the US and Israel started on February 28.In his comments, however, he overlooks the major problems highlighted in military analyses, including that even if the landed soldiers were to succeed in taking the island, they would quickly become targets for attacks from the adjacent coast.
The issue of larger commitments on the ground in the Middle East is also very sensitive in the US after previous wars.
– I have always preferred to see us take Kharg, Trump tells Fox News and adds:
– But I don’t know if the Americans would tolerate it, to be completely honest.
He also says that he “preferably would not” see attacks on civilian Iranian infrastructure such as power plants.
– Because once you do it, people suffer.
Iran warns Musk
Iran, for its part, warns that Elon Musk's companies in the region could become targets. In continued retaliatory attacks against the US, Iran will consider multi-billionaire Elon Musk's companies in the Middle East as military targets, reports the pro-regime news agency Fars.
The threat is justified by the fact that, according to Fars, Musk allows both the American and Israeli military to use his company's infrastructure.
FACTS
Kharg
Kharg is a small Iranian island in the northern Persian Gulf - only 25 square kilometers in size, or slightly smaller than Visingsö - and a few miles from Iran's northern coast and the larger port city of Bushehr.The island has a unique location in the area and became absolutely central when Iran's oil industry grew. The sea along Iran’s coast is too shallow for the largest tankers to dock there, but the waters around Kharg are deep enough.
Today, the island is dominated by the oil industry, with depots and terminals and tankers in shuttle service. It is also home to up to 10,000 people. Up to ten giant ships at a time can be filled with Iranian oil there. The flow can amount to up to seven million barrels per day.
Kharg is reportedly nicknamed “the forbidden island” by locals, as it is under strict military control.
The island is mainly made of limestone, is one of the few islands in the Persian Gulf with freshwater springs, and is also home to many gazelles that roam freely.
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