Trump warns to hit Iran ‘very hard,’ threatens to take ‘total control’ of oil industry

DUBAI, Jun 11: President Donald Trump on Thursday said the US would hit Iran “very hard tonight,” threatening in a social media post to “assume total control” of Iran’s oil and gas industries, including the key Kharg Island, in the “not too distant future.”
The post come after the US and Iran traded strikes for a second day, pushing the Middle East closer to the resumption of a full-scale war. The American attack, which lasted into Thursday morning in Iran, appeared more intense and wider than the day before.
Iran released little information on the extent of the damage and said it fired back at Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan, as it had a day before.
The US military continued to enforce its blockade of Iranian ports, saying Thursday it fired missiles to disable a tanker attempting to transport Iranian oil. An Indian official said a US strike on a different merchant ship earlier this week killed three Indian sailors.
It was the third time this week that back-and-forth strikes have rattled the Middle East. The first involved attacks between Iran and Israel, followed by the two rounds of fire between the US and Iran, which hit countries in the region that host American bases.
The new exchange of fire came as efforts to negotiate an end to the war appeared stuck, with US President Donald Trump warning that Tehran would “pay the price” for stalled negotiations. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday that the US attacks had “effectively rendered the ceasefire ... meaningless,” without saying it was abandoning it.
Central to the negotiations is Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, which has disrupted global energy supplies, driven up fuel prices and made food and other basics more expensive well beyond the region.
Iran announced Thursday that the strait was closed �" but it was unclear what that meant since it has severely restricted traffic through the waterway since early in the war and only a trickle of ships have gotten through. The US military’s Central Command disputed the claim �" and Trump said Wednesday that the US has undertaken a secret mission in recent weeks to sneak ships through the passage.
The two sides also remain at odds over Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran insists is peaceful but which the US and Israel fear could be used to build an atomic weapon due to its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The US and Israel said a major reason they went to war on Feb. 28 was to ensure that Iran would never be able to do that.
Central Command said its latest round of airstrikes came “in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression” and targeted “Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems and air defense sites.” It did not elaborate on the damage done by the strikes, which it said ended just before sunrise Thursday in Iran.�" AP