Iran War

DONALD Trump has vowed to destroy Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium whether or not he makes a deal with the rogue nation.

As his bloody war on Iran reached its 100-day mark, Trump threatened: “We’re very close to a deal, or I’m going to blow the hell out of them.”

Trump told NBC in an interview recorded on Friday that the US could work with the Iranians to destroy the regime’s stocks of enriched uranium.

Iran’s Supreme Leader has taken a chilling swipe at the US – but still hasn’t been seen in public since the start of the war more than three months ago.

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said in a statement that the “malicious enemy” has been defeated with “a decisive blow”. The message was read out on Thursday during a ceremony marking the 37th anniversary of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini’s death, and said: “I tell the dear Iranian nation that the malicious enemy … is now experiencing a profound and meaningful humiliation, both on the military battlefield and in the public arena and it is now focused on trickery.

Vladimir Putin has suffered a humilating blow after Ukraine struck his £120million warship in a huge attack near St Petersburg. The corvette Boykiy was hit in Kronstadt – headquarters of the Kremlin’s Baltic Fleet. The vessel was seen engulfed in flames in a Ukrainian video.

The 343ft-long vessel was like a “sitting duck” despite promises that defences had been tightened this week due to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum [SPIEF], hosted by the Russian dictator. One year ago, the Boykiy was guarding Putin’s sanctions-busting shadow fleet through the English Channel.

American military forces carried out strikes on an Iranian island abutting the Strait of Hormuz in response to attempted Iranian drone and missile attacks, the latest clash between the two countries as President Trump pushes to strike a longer-term agreement with Iran.

U.S. Central Command said in a statement Tuesday it shot down three Iranian drones that targeted civilian mariners. Iran also launched ballistic missiles at U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf region that “all failed to hit their intended targets,” according to CENTCOM, including three missiles that were fired at Bahrain but were shot down by air defenses, and two missiles that “fell short or broke apart enroute” before hitting Kuwait.

A U.S. official said Sunday evening that Secretary Rubio spoke with both Lebanon’s President Josef Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend about the ongoing negotiations between Israel and Lebanon.

To advance the talks, the U.S. proposed a sequence of events that would see the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon stop all attacks on Israel, and in return, Israel would refrain from escalation in Lebanese capital Beirut.

The idea is that those first steps would create space for gradual deescalation and an effective cessation of hostilities.

The United States and Iran reached an agreement on Thursday to extend their ceasefire and lift restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, sources told Reuters, though U.S. President Donald Trump has yet to approve it and Iranian state media said it had not been finalized.

According to four sources familiar with the matter, the agreement would extend the truce for another 60 days and allow traffic to flow through the strategic waterway while negotiators tackle difficult issues such as Iran’s nuclear program.

If approved by leadership in Washington and Tehran, it would amount to the biggest step towards peace since the conflict began on February 28. News of the possible agreement came after a round of tit-for-tat attacks between the two countries, the latest such incident since the ceasefire took effect in early April.

Trump has not yet approved the deal, the sources said. The White House declined to comment, and Iran has yet to comment on news of the proposed deal, which was first reported by Axios.