Iran-US war latest: Tehran warns of ‘heavy assault’ if ships attacked as Trump awaits response to peace proposal – UK Times

New analysis by the CIA suggests that the Islamic Republic may be more resilient than expected and could withstand the economic pain of the blockade until later this year.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian urged Iranians to limit electricity and gas after a US blockade interrupted the flow of shipments to Iran, state media reported.

“In the current situation, we must prevent pressure on the country’s energy grid through public participation and consumption management,” Pezeshkian said.

The Qatari prime minister met with Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday, CBS News reported.

A State Department spokesperson later confirmed Rubio’s meeting with the prime minister, saying in a statement that they “discussed U.S. support for Qatar’s defense, and the importance of continued close coordination to deter threats and promote stability and security across the Middle East.”

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards threatened to target U.S. sites in the Middle East if Iran’s tankers come under fire, Iranian media reported.

“Any attack on Iranian tankers and commercial vessels will result in a heavy attack on one of the American centers in the region and enemy ships,” the Guards said.

After a roughly seven-hour lull on Truth Social Saturday, President Donald Trump resurfaced with a burst of over a dozen posts featuring AI-generated Iran war images and golf tournament snapshots.

His account had been inactive through most of the morning and early afternoon, but at 3:51 p.m., the 79-year-old Republican shared an artificial image showing drones marked with Iranian flags plunging into the sea, describing them as “dropping like butterflies.”

Moments later, he followed up with another fabricated visual depicting a U.S. warship firing laser beams into the sky, triggering explosions. The caption read: “Bye Bye, Drones.”

Trump then shifted his focus to criticizing his Democratic predecessors — Joe Biden and Barack Obama — appearing to fault them for not taking military action against Iran.

A split-screen graphic showed a destroyed Iranian naval fleet under the label “Trump,” contrasted with intact vessels under “Obama/Biden,” echoing Trump’s statement last month that U.S. forces had sunk 159 Iranian ships.

Israel set up a clandestine military outpost ​in the Iraqi desert to support its air campaign against Iran and launched airstrikes against Iraqi troops who nearly discovered it, the ⁠Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter including US officials.

Israel built the installation, which housed special forces and served as a logistical ⁠hub for the ​Israeli air ⁠force, with the knowledge of the US just before the start of the US-Israeli war ⁠against Iran, the newspaper said. It also ​included search-and-rescue ⁠teams positioned to assist ‌any downed Israeli pilots, the Journal said.

There was no immediate ‌response from the Israeli prime ‌minister’s office to a Reuters request for comment.

The base was almost discovered in early March after Iraqi state media said ⁠a local shepherd reported unusual military activity, including helicopter movements in the area.

Iraqi troops were dispatched to investigate, but Israeli forces used airstrikes to keep them at a distance and prevent the site from being discovered, the paper said, citing one ‌of the sources.

Three Israeli drone strikes on vehicles just south of Beirut on Saturday killed four people while a series of airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed at least 13, including a man and his 12-year-old daughter, state media and the Health Ministry said.

The three drone strikes south of Beirut marked another escalation since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect on April 17.

Both Israel and Hezbollah have continued their daily attacks despite the truce.

On Wednesday night, Israel’s air force carried out an airstrike on a southern suburb in which Israel said it killed a senior Hezbollah military official. It was the first strike near the capital since the ceasefire was reached.

Two of the strikes on Saturday took place on the highway linking Beirut with the southern port city of Sidon in which several people were wounded, while the third happened on a road leading to Lebanon’s Chouf region killing three, the state-run National News Agency said.

A state of relative calm prevailed around the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, after days of sporadic flare-ups, as the United States waited for Iran’s response to its latest proposals to end more than two months ⁠of fighting and begin peace talks.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that Washington expected a response within hours. But a day later, there was no sign of movement from Tehran on the proposal, which would formally end the war before talks on more contentious issues, including Iran’s nuclear program.

A Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker was sailing toward the strait on Saturday en route to Pakistan, according to LSEG shipping data, in a move sources said was approved by Iran to build confidence with Qatar and with Pakistan, a mediator in the war.

If completed, ⁠it would mark the first transit of a Qatari LNG vessel through the strait since ​the ⁠conflict started.

With Donald Trump due to begin a visit to China next week, there has been mounting pressure to draw a line under the war, which has thrown energy markets into turmoil and posed a growing threat to the world economy.

Russian President ⁠Vladimir Putin said on ⁠Saturday ​that ⁠he ⁠hoped that ​the ⁠Iran ‌conflict would end as ‌soon as ‌possible ⁠but that if it did not then everyone ‌would ​lose ‌out.

The US Treasury on Friday announced sanctions against 10 individuals and companies, including several in China and Hong Kong, over accusations they aided Iran’s efforts to secure weapons and the raw materials needed to build its Shahed drones and ballistic ⁠missiles.

The Treasury move, first reported by Reuters, comes days before Donald Trump plans to travel to China for a meeting with President Xi Jinping and as efforts to end the war with Iran have stalled.

In a statement, the Treasury said it remained ready to take economic action against ⁠Iran’s military industrial base to prevent Tehran from ​reconstituting ⁠its production capacity.

The Treasury said it was also prepared to act against any foreign company supporting illicit Iranian commerce, including airlines, and could impose secondary sanctions on ⁠foreign financial institutions that aid Iran’s efforts, including those connected to China’s independent “teapot” oil refineries.

Brett ​Erickson, ⁠managing principal at Obsidian Risk Advisors, said the ‌Treasury’s actions were aimed at cracking down on Iran’s ability to threaten ships operating in the Strait of Hormuz and regional allies.