Trump says Iran has 48 hours to make deal on opening Strait of Hormuz or US will unleash 'Hell'

LAST UPDATE | 21 hrs ago

US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has said Iran has 48 hours left to make a deal on opening the vital Strait of Hormuz or face “Hell”.

“Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, referring to his ultimatum issued on 26 March.

“Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign (sic) down on them,” the president said, adding: “Glory be to GOD!”

Trump had initially threatened on 21 March to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants, beginning with the country’s biggest, “if Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS.”

Two days later, however, he said “very good and productive conversations” were being held with Iranian authorities, and that he had postponed any strikes on power plants for five days.

He later again pushed the deadline back, to expire at 1am Irish time on Tuesday.

Experts have said that attacks on civilian energy infrastructure could constitute a war crime.

Meanwhile, a projectile from a US-Israeli attack struck near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant on Saturday, killing one person, state media reported, as the foreign minister warned against further attacks on the site.

Russia condemned the “evil” US-Israeli strike on the plant in Bushehr, which hosts Russian staff, and urged an immediate end to attacks on atomic facilities.

“We strongly condemn this evil deed, which resulted in loss of life,” said foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

“Strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, including the Bushehr nuclear power plant, must cease immediately,” she added.

The US military is pressing ahead in a frantic search for a missing pilot after Iran shot down an American warplane and called on people to turn the pilot in, promising a reward.

The plane, identified by Iran as a US F-15E Strike Eagle, was one of two attacked on Friday, with one service member rescued and at least one missing.

It is the first time the United States has lost aircraft in Iranian territory during the war, now in its sixth week, and could mark a new turning point in the campaign.

The conflict, launched by the US and Israel on February 28, has rippled across the region.

It has so far killed thousands, upended global markets, cut off key shipping routes, spiked fuel prices and shows no signs of slowing as Iran responds to US and Israeli air strikes with attacks across the region.

Missile and drone strikes continued today, with an apparent Iranian drone damaging the headquarters of the US tech giant Oracle in Dubai.

The downing of the military planes came just two days after President Donald Trump said in a national address that the US has “beaten and completely decimated Iran” and was “going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast”.

The US and Israel had boasted recently that Iran’s air defences were decimated.

Also today, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran said an air strike hit near its Bushehr nuclear facility, killing a security guard and damaging a support building.

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It is the fourth time the facility has been targeted during the war.

The agency announced the attack on social media.

Neither the White House nor the Pentagon released public information about the downed planes.

In an email from the Pentagon obtained by The Associated Press, meanwhile, the military said it received notification of “an aircraft being shot down” in the Middle East, without providing more details.

A US crew member from that plane was rescued.

But the Pentagon also notified the House Armed Services Committee that the status of a second service member on the fighter jet was not known.

A US military search-and-rescue operation continued this morning.

In a brief telephone interview with NBC News on Friday, Trump declined to discuss the search-and-rescue efforts but said what happened would not affect negotiations with Iran.

Separately, Iranian state media said a US A-10 attack aircraft crashed in the Persian Gulf after being struck by Iranian defence forces.

A US official said it was not clear if the aircraft crashed or was shot down or whether Iran was involved.

Neither the status of the crew nor exactly where it went down was immediately known.

An anchor on a TV channel affiliated with Iranian state television urged residents to hand over any “enemy pilot” to the police.

Throughout the war, Iran has made a series of claims about shooting down piloted enemy aircraft that turned out not to be true.

Friday was the first time the Iranian public was urged to look for a downed pilot.

Iranian state media said in a post on the social platform X its military shot down a US F-15E Strike Eagle.

The aircraft is a variation of the Air Force fighter jet that carries a pilot and a weapons system officer.

An apparent Iranian drone damaged the Dubai headquarters of the American tech giant Oracle on Saturday after Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened the firm.

The attack targeted the headquarters, which sit along Dubai’s main Sheikh Zayed Road.

Footage obtained by The Associated Press from outside the United Arab Emirates (UAE) showed damage to the building.

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A large hole could be seen in the building’s southwestern corner, with the “e” in “Oracle” on a neon sign damaged.

The sheikhdom’s Dubai Media Office, which speaks for its government, said it was a “minor incident caused by debris from an aerial interception that fell on the facade of the Oracle building in Dubai Internet City”, adding there were no injuries.

Oracle, based in Austin, Texas, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The guard has accused some of America’s largest tech companies of being involved in “terrorist espionage” operations against the Islamic Republic and said they were legitimate targets.

Earlier Iranian drone strikes hit Amazon Web Services facilities in both the UAE and Bahrain.

In a social media post late on Friday, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker, issued a veiled threat to disrupt traffic through the Bab-el-Mandeb, a second strategic waterway.

The strait, 32km wide, links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

It is one of the busiest choke-points in global trade, with more than a tenth of seaborne global oil and a quarter of container ships passing through it.

“What share of global oil, LNG, wheat, rice, and fertilizer shipments transits the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait?” Qalibaf wrote.

“Which countries and companies account for the highest transit volumes through the strait?”

Iran has already greatly disturbed the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, sending fuel prices skyrocketing and jolting the world economy.

World leaders are struggling to end Iran’s stranglehold on the strait as the UN Security Council is expected to take up the matter today.

Trump has vacillated on America’s role in the strait, alternately threatening Iran if it does not open the waterway and telling other nations to “go get your own oil”.

On Friday, he said in a post on social media: “With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE.”

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began.

In a review released on Friday, the US-based group Armed Conflict Location and Event Data said it found that civilian casualties were clustered around strikes on security and state-linked sites “rather than indiscriminate bombardment” of urban areas.

More than two dozen people have died in Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 US service members have been killed.

In Lebanon, more than 1,300 people have been killed and more than one million displaced.

Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.