Iran-US war latest: Trump claims conflict will be over soon but US hasn’t ‘won enough’ yet – UK Times

US vice president JD Vance was present as the body of the seventh US service member killed in the war with Iran arrived at Dover Air Force Base on Monday evening.

Sgt Benjamin N Pennington sustained critical injuries during an attack on Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base and later succumbed to those wounds, officials reported.

Earlier, six American troops were killed in an Iranian drone strike on a base in Kuwait.

According to an Iranian official, US and Israeli operations in Iran have resulted in roughly 1,300 fatalities, while Iranian attacks throughout the Middle East have claimed more than 30 lives.

Donald Trump has again suggested, without evidence, that Iran bombed an elementary school in Minab on 28 February, killing 175 people, including many children.

Video evidence verified by The New York Times shows a Tomahawk missile struck a naval base near the school.

Tomahawks are developed by the United States, and only a few allies possess them; Iran does not have Tomahawks but has its own distinct domestically produced cruise missiles.

Earlier, US Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, admitted America “made a mistake” when a girls’ school in Iran was bombed.

US military investigators reportedly believe American forces were likely responsible for the strike in Minab late last month.

Attacks on desalination plants mark a dangerous escalation in the Middle East conflict.

US Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, has admitted America “made a mistake” when a girls’ school in Iran was bombed.

“It was terrible. We made a mistake,” he told NBC News’ Sahil Kapur. “Other countries do that sort of thing intentionally, like Russia. We would never do that intentionally. I think the department is investigating it now, and I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry it happened. It was a mistake”.

US military investigators reportedly believe American forces were likely responsible for the strike in Minab late last month, which officials say killed dozens of people, including many students.

US President Donald Trump has claimed Iran was behind the attack.

Global oil prices dropped sharply in early Tuesday trading in Asia, with Brent down about 8.5 per cent to $92.50 a barrel and US oil down around 9 per cent to $88.60.Prices remain roughly 30 per cent higher than before the war began.

The fall followed Donald Trump’s comments that the war will end “very soon”.

The dip boosted Asian markets, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 up 2.8 per cent and South Korea’s Kospi rising over 5 per cent.

An Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps spokesman, Ali Mohammad Naeini, accused US president Donald Trump of falsely claiming that Iranian missile launches were declining.

According to the semi-official Tasnim news agency, he claimed that Iran’s missiles were growing more powerful and larger than in the early days of the war.

A New York Times tally shows that Iran has launched over 2,000 drones and 500 ballistic missiles at American allies in the Middle East since the war began, with strikes continuing into early Tuesday.

This count does not include launches at Israel, where authorities have not shared such details.

Five members of the Iranian women’s football team were granted humanitarian visas in Australia after their Asian Cup exit.

US president Donald Trump publicly urged Australia to “give asylum” to the women’s football team. “The US will take them if you won’t,” he added.

He later said he spoke with Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese, and wrote on his social media that “five have already been taken care of, and the rest are on their way”.

“In any event, the Prime Minister is doing a very good job having to do with this rather delicate situation. God bless Australia!” Trump said.

Australia’s immigration minister Tony Burke earlier said that the women “were moved to a safe location” by the police.

Australia’s humanitarian visa program provides permanent protection to refugees and individuals in urgent need, allowing them to live, work, and study freely in the country.

Donald Trump has said there will be “fire and fury” if Iran disrupts the shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

“If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,” Trump said online.

“Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them — But I hope, and pray, that it does not happen!” Trump added.

Oil prices soared to $115 a barrel on Monday but have fallen dramatically in early trading today after Trump’s claim that the war will be over “soon”.

Peaceful and violent, in video game screenshots and movie clips and on professional playing fields, the icons come fast and furious in quick-cut footage — some of the most renowned slivers of 21st-century American popular culture, harnessed by the Trump administration to promote the freshly launched war with Iran.

The White House’s social media feed has issued a series of pumped-up videos that mix real Iran war explosions with movie action heroes, gaming footage and bone-crunching football tackles, leading critics like a top cleric of the U.S. Catholic Church to condemn a trivialization of deadly real-life conflict.

Clips from Braveheart, Superman, Top Gun, Breaking Bad and Iron Man. All appear cut between declassified imagery of what is presumably the Iran war. Even the cartoon likeness of SpongeBob SquarePants is spliced in, asking, “You wanna see me do it again?” in between images of buildings, planes and vehicles blown up by American bombs. The caption on one bomb-heavy post: “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” — the title of a post-9/11 Toby Keith song about war that is subtitled “The Angry American.”

The fiction-meets-reality product of the White House’s aggressive social media team cuts a wide swath through cultural touchstones that resonate with young men, including the video games Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Halo. Two videos feature NFL and college football tackles and Major League Baseball home runs — with the cracks of bats interspersed with explosions.