US considering 'winding down' Iran operations

US President Donald Trump has said he was considering "winding down" military operations against Iran and that the Strait of Hormuz would need to be "guarded and policed" by other countries who use the vital waterway.

"We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the terrorist regime of Iran," Mr Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

"The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it - The United States does not!" he said.

Meanwhile, the British government has given authorisation for the US to use military bases in Britain to carry out strikes on Iranian missile sites that are attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

British ministers met today to discuss the war with Iran and Iran's blocking of the Strait of Hormuz, according to a Downing Street statement.

"They confirmed that the agreement for the US to use UK bases in the collective self-defence of the region includes US defensive operations to degrade the missile sites and capabilities being used to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz," the statement said.

Up until this point, the Government has allowed the US to use British bases - including the one on Diego Garcia - only to hit missile sites targeting British interests in the region.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in a post on X that Starmer was "putting British lives in danger by allowing UK bases to be used for aggression against Iran," adding "Iran will exercise its right to self-defence."
Donald Trump has said the UK "should have acted a lot faster" in allowing America to use British bases to strike Iranian missile sites targeting the Strait of Hormuz.

Watch: Trump says UK should have acted faster on Iran
Speaking to reporters outside the White House, US President Donald Trump said: "It's been a very late response from the UK.

"I'm surprised because the relationship is so good, but this has never happened before.

"They were really, pretty much our first ally, all over the world."
Referring to Diego Garcia, he said: "They didn't want us to use the island, the so-called island, which for some reason they gave up rights to it.

"I was a little surprised in the UK, to be honest.

"They should have acted a lot faster."
Mr Trump has already piled pressure on Nato allies, calling them "cowards" for refusing to offer warships to reopen the Strait.

The president, who has repeatedly berated countries including the UK for failing to respond to his request for support, claimed reopening the key oil and gas shipping route would be a "simple" military task with "little risk".

The move will likely anger Tehran, which has already claimed the UK providing its military bases to the US to use is "participation in aggression".

US sending more troops to Middle East, officials say
Meanwhile, the US military is deploying a large amphibious assault ship with thousands of additional marines and sailors to the Middle East, three US officials have said, as Iran's new supreme leader hailed Iran's "unity" and "resistance".

It had been previously reported that the US, desperate to reopen the Gulf oil bottleneck of the Strait of Hormuz, shut by Iran since the US and Israel attacked almost three weeks ago, was considering deployments up to and including landings.

Oil prices have risen around 50% since the start of the war.

The news came shortly after President Donald Trump again vented his fury at US allies for declining to help open the strait while fighting continued, albeit in a conflict they were neither consulted on nor advised of.

"COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER!" he wrote.

The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not say what the role of the additional troops would be.

As Muslims around the region tried to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which ends the fasting month of Ramadan, and Iranians marked Nowruz, the Persian New Year, the prospect of a quick end to a war about to enter its fourth week seemed remote.

Explosions were heard in Tehran as Iranians celebrated Nowruz, with blasts reported in the eastern and northern parts of the capital.

Mujtaba Khamenei, Iran's new supreme leader, who has not been seen in public since the Israeli attack that killed his father and predecessor on the war's first day, posted a Nowruz message on his Telegram channel.

"The enemy believed that by targeting the leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) and influential figures, it could instil fear and force the people to withdraw," it said.

"But the nation responded with unity ...

resistance, and dealt a disorienting blow to the enemy."
The benchmark price of Brent crude oil LCOc1 was up slightly, near $110, after surging the day before on growing fears that the largest ever disruption to world energy supplies would trigger a global economic shock.

O/R
Even if the conflict does stop soon, there will be no rapid recovery from the upheaval caused by airstrikes and Iran's virtual closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for 20% of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas.

Israel did promise to avoid further attacks on Iran's South Pars gasfield the day after an Iranian retaliatory strike on Qatar caused damage that will leave the world short of natural gas for years to come.

But Kuwait's state oil firm said its Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery had suffered multiple drone attacks tiday that set some units alight.

Germany, Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Canada, as well as NATO non-member Japan, pledged in a joint statement on Thursday to join "appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait".

The leaders of Germany and France, however, made clear that this presupposed an end to the fighting.

On his social media platform this morning, Mr Trump restated a long-standing complaint:
"...they complain about the high oil prices they are forced to pay, but don't want to help open the Strait of Hormuz, a simple military maneuver that is the single reason for the high oil prices," he wrote.

"So easy for them to do, with so little risk.

COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER!"
US voters oppose Iran ground war as fuel prices climb
While soaring US diesel and petrol prices can only hurt Mr Trump's core political support, the war is also unpopular with voters, and a potential ground operation even more so, as his Republicans prepare to defend slim majorities in midterm congressional elections.

A US official and three people familiar with the matter said this week that the US was considering deploying thousands more troops to the Middle East, potentially even landing on Iran's shore or its Kharg Island oil export hub.

Flows of crude and petroleum have dropped by about 12 million barrels per day - roughly 12% of global demand - due to output cuts and export halts by Gulf producers.

Those barrels cannot easily be replaced by the transport, shipping and manufacturing industries that rely on them, and will make themselves felt for months or even years.

International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol told the Financial Times restoring oil and gas flows might take six months.

Israel's military said it had attacked government facilities in Tehran, and that it had this week killed a key commander in Iran's intelligence ministry, Mahdi Rostami Shamastan.

The semi-official Iranian news agency Tasnim said intelligence minister Esmail Ahmadi had also been killed, the latest of dozens of leading government, military and scientific figures assassinated by Israel.

"We have nobody to talk to," Mr Trump said.

"And you know what?

We like it that way."
In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, air raid sirens howled as explosions from interceptors rang out.

The military said Iran had fired a barrage of missiles, and the ambulance service said at least one appeared to have carried dispersing cluster bombs.

A blast blew a crater in a hillside just inside Jerusalem's Old City, spraying debris across a road, after a warning of incoming missiles fired from Iran.

Damage was reported just a few hundred metres from Jerusalem's revered holy sites of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had attacked Haifa and Tel Aviv with multi-warhead missiles and used drones to attack stocks of drones and cruise missiles in US bases, including Sheikh Isa air base in Bahrain.

The war has already killed thousands and displaced millions, mostly in Iran and in Lebanon, where Israel has attacked the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in the south and in Beirut.

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