Strikes continued to rain down on Iran overnight, with retaliatory strikes launched on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, even as US President Donald Trump repeated claims that a deal could be reached “soon” to end the war.
Trump, citing the number of Iranian leaders who have been killed in the month-long US-Israeli war against Iran, said regime change has already been achieved and the new leadership is “much more reasonable”.
“We’ve had regime change,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. “We’re dealing with different people than anybody’s dealt with before. It’s a whole different group of people. So I would consider that regime change.”
Trump was asked aboard Air Force One if Iran had responded to a 15-point ceasefire plan the US has proposed and he said they did, adding: “They gave us most of the points. Why wouldn’t they?”
In Pakistan, the government is looking to capitalise on its links with Teharan and the Gulf states, as well as a budding rapport with Trump, to broker peace talks.
“Pakistan is very happy that both Iran and the US have expressed their confidence in Pakistan to facilitate the talks,” Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said.
But the speaker of Iran’s parliament has accused Washington of using diplomacy as a smoke screen.
“The enemy publicly sends messages of negotiation and dialogue while secretly planning a ground attack,” Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency.
“Our men are waiting for the arrival of the American soldiers on the ground to set them on fire and punish their regional allies once and for all,” he added.
Despite making diplomatic overtures, the United States has also been sending more military assets into the region.
The USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship carrying around 3,500 Marines and sailors, arrived in the Middle East on Friday.
According to The Washington Post, the Pentagon was preparing plans for weeks of ground operations, potentially including raids on sites near the Strait of Hormuz, though Trump has yet to approve any deployment.
Power cuts in Tehran and surrounding areas
Iran launched strikes on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia after Iranian electrical facilities came under attack, cutting power to parts of Tehran and surrounding areas.
Iran’s energy ministry reported power outages in the capital Tehran, its surrounding region and neighbouring Alborz province on Sunday “following attacks on electricity industry facilities”.
It said “electricity was cut off in these areas, and efforts are being made to resolve the problem”, according to state television.
US President Donald Trump has previously threatened to strike Iranian power stations if Tehran does not negotiate a peace deal, before repeatedly extending a deadline to do so.
An Iranian retaliatory strike on a power station and water desalination in Kuwait killed one Indian worker and damaged a building at the site, the Gulf state’s electricity ministry said Monday.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said its forces detected and intercepted five ballistic missiles.
Iran’s energy ministry reported power outages in the capital on Sunday, its surrounding region and Alborz province “following attacks on electricity industry facilities.”
Israel to expand invasion of southern Lebanon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he had ordered the military “to further expand the existing security zone” as his country continues its ground invasion of its northern neighbour.
“This is intended to definitively neutralise the threat of invasion (by Hezbollah militants) and to keep anti-tank missile fire away from the border,” he said, adding “Iran is no longer the same Iran, Hezbollah is no longer the same Hezbollah, and Hamas is no longer the same Hamas.”
“These are no longer terrorist armies threatening our existence — they are defeated enemies, fighting for their own survival.”
“We are determined, we are fighting, and with God’s help, we are winning,” Netanyahu said.
Death toll continues to rise
Lebanon’s health ministry said on Sunday that Israeli strikes had killed 1,238 people in the country since the start of the latest war with Hezbollah on 2 March.
The toll included 124 children, while more than 3,500 people had been wounded, the ministry said in a statement. On Saturday and Sunday alone, 49 people were killed, it said, including 10 rescue workers and three journalists.
The UN force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said one of their peacekeepers was killed after a projectile hit one of their positions late Sunday.
“A peacekeeper was tragically killed last night when a projectile exploded in a UNIFIL position near Adchit Al Qusayr,” said Monday’s statement. “Another was critically injured.”
The UNIFIL statement said they did not know the origin of the projectile but had launched an investigation to find out.
Iran’s government has not released an updated overall casualty toll in recent days, but the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said on 28 March that at least 3,461 people had been killed, including 1,551 civilians,among them at least 236 children.
Israeli emergency services and authorities say attacks have killed 19 civilians on the Israeli side since the start of the war, while authorities in Gulf states and the US Central Command (CENTCOM) have reported 38 people killed, including 19 civilians.
CENTCOM has confirmed six US service personnel killed in Kuwait and one killed in Saudi Arabia.
