Donald Trump is the only person who knows his plans for Iran, the White House said, after the US president warned that a “whole civilization will die” if Tehran fails to reach a deal Tuesday.
“The Iranian regime has until 8PM Eastern Time to meet the moment and make a deal with the United States,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to the AFP news agency, when asked if Trump was prepared to use a nuclear weapon and about reports that Iran had cut off negotiations.
“Only the President knows where things stand and what he will do.”
In a social media post earlier on Tuesday, Trump warned that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again”.
“I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“However, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter, and less radicalised minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, who knows?”
“We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world,” Trump said. “47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran,” he concluded.
Trump had threatened to target Iranian infrastructure unless Tehran agreed a deal to end the war on Tuesday, saying he was “considering blowing everything up and taking over the oil.”
Meanwhile, the UN human rights chief decried what he called the “incendiary rhetoric” surrounding the war and warned that deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure was “a war crime.”
“Under international law, deliberately attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime. Anyone responsible for international crimes must be held to account by a competent court,” Volker Türk said in a statement, without naming the United States, Israel or Iran.
And Israel’s military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said on Tuesday that the joint US-Israeli offensive against Iran was “approaching a strategic crossroads” and vowed to “intensify the damage inflicted on the regime.”
“We are approaching a strategic crossroads in the joint campaign against Iran. So far, we have achieved significant gains, including relative to the objectives we set at the outset of the operation. We will continue to act with determination and intensify the damage inflicted on the regime,” Zamir was quoted as saying in a military statement.
Iranian officials claimed earlier on Tuesday that at least two bridges, railway infrastructure and a key highway were hit and damaged as part of a wave of air strikes on infrastructure targets.
A bridge near the holy city of Qom and another carrying a railway line in the central city of Kashan were struck, according to regional officials quoted by state-run media.
Two people were killed, and three were injured in Kashan, senior regional security official Akbar Salehi said, according to Iran’s IRNA news agency. The death toll could not be independently verified.
A key highway in northern Iran connecting the main northern city of Tabriz with Tehran via Zanjan was also closed after a hit around 90 kilometres outside of Tabriz, an official told IRNA.
A Telegram channel of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said the strike hit an overpass bridge.
The Mizan news agency also reported a strike on railway tracks in Karaj, outside Tehran, with images showing Red Crescent rescuers carrying an injured man on a stretcher.
All trains to and from Iran’s second-largest city Mashhad were cancelled on Tuesday following a warning from Israel against using the railways.
According to the ISNA news agency, there was a power outage in parts of the cities of Karaj and Fardis outside Tehran after power transmission lines and a power substation were knocked out of service by airstrikes.
Additional sources • AFP
