LIVE: Iran threatens US with ‘crushing’ attacks

Donald Trump claimed near-victory in the Iran war during a low-energy White House address to the nation last night that sent oil prices soaring and global stocks sliding.

The President spoke for just under 20 minutes and didn’t announce any major developments – including whether ground troops would need to be deployed in the Gulf or who would take over leadership of the pariah state.

Instead, he repeated that Operation Epic Fury would conclude ‘shortly’, noting that the US’s military objectives were ‘nearing completion’ before vowing to bomb Iran ‘back to the Stone Ages’ if it didn’t do a deal.

Watch all the lines from his presidential address here:

Oil prices have risen to $106 per barrel after the US President addressed in his first primetime speech since launching the war on Iran.

The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil was $99 before he spoke to the nation yesterday.

Trump blamed the spike on the ‘Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighbouring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict.

He did briefly acknowledge concerns among US citizens about the war causing soaring fuel prices.

However, Trump insisted these rising prices would soon go down while also adding that countries that get most of their oil from the Gulf region should lead the way in opening the Strait of Hormuz, which is effectively blocked by Iran.

Britain, France and other U.S. allies have said they are willing to help to keep the strait open, but only after hostilities have ceased.

‘They can do it easily,’ Trump said. ‘We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on.’

Trump was also frustrated that NATO allies had not offered to help open the strait, even threatening to withdraw from the 76-year-old alliance.

While he had told Reuters earlier in the day that he would discuss the US relationship with NATO in his speech, he did not mention the bloc.

The highest bridge in the Middle East between Tehran and the Iranian city of Karaj has been bombed in strikes, Iranian media is reporting.

Two people were reportedly killed in an initial strike on the B1 highway bridge earlier today and another attack was carried out while rescuers were helping people injured at the site, Iran’s Fars news agency is reporting.

Video footage showed smoke blowing from the B1 which is considered to be the ‘highest bridge and engineering masterpiece of the Middle East’.

by Phillip Nieto, US Political Reporter

JD Vance’s peace talks with Iran may have been blown up after a key figure helping plan the summit was wounded in US-Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday.

Kamal Kharazi, Iran’s former foreign minister, was injured when a residential building in Tehran was struck, according to the New York Times.

Kharazi, 81, is seen as a moderate and widely respected foreign policy figure within the regime.

Iranian state media said he had been overseeing engagement with Pakistani officials to help organize a meeting with Vance aimed at ending the war.

Iranian officials condemned the joint US-Israel strikes as an ‘attempt to derail diplomacy,’ even as Donald Trump insists he wants to wind down the conflict.

RAF Regiment gunners have downed multiple Iranian drones overnight, according to the Ministry of Defence.

It is understood the gunners were operating in a high-threat area.

UK Typhoons and F-35 jets, together with Wildcat helicopters, have also been involved in defensive missions across the Middle East region overnight

Oil and gas tankers are sailing through the Strait of Hormuz after securing passage through “diplomatic channels”, a risk analyst has said.

senior risk and compliance analyst Bridget Diakun, who works at shipping news service Lloyd’s List, told BBC’s World At One vessels are entering the waterway when owners act through intermediaries to contact Iran’s authorities for approval.

She said: ‘We understand that, in two instances, the ship owners and operators have paid for passage, but those are the only cases where we understand that to be the case. We do think that, in other circumstances, the passings are being secured through diplomatic channels.’

Ms Diakun said that, from the ‘traceable transits going through the Strait’, most of them are taking a detour through the IRGC route, suggesting ‘coordination’, but that there have been several Omani-linked ships today taking a different route.

Donald Trump must not abandon ‘a mess that he’s made’ in the Middle East, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said.

Asked whether she thought the special relationship was under threat as a result of Britain’s decision not to enter the war, and the criticism from Mr Trump which has followed, the Tory leader told broadcasters: “The special relationship is between the UK and the US, not between Donald Trump and Keir Starmer or whoever happens to be holding those offices.

‘We need to preserve it. We need the US. They are a close military ally. They help a lot on British security, we need to do what is in the British national interest.

‘But if I was speaking to him, I’d be saying, ‘if you break it, you own it’. That’s what Colin Powell, a former secretary of state in the US, had said. ‘If you break it, you own it’.

‘He started this war. We said that if he needed support against Iran, …use our air bases. That’s one of the things that Britain has done. He should now not be abandoning a mess that he’s made, if he thinks that it is a mess.’

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz has threatened to send Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem to the ‘depths of hell’ after the Lebanese extremists fired rockets into northern Israel.

‘I have a clear message for Naim Qassem, Secretary-General of the Hezbollah terror organization: You and your associates will pay a very heavy price for the intensified fire toward Israeli civilians as they sit to celebrate the Passover Seder,’ Katz said after speaking to military officials.

‘You will not live to see this because you will be deep in the depths of hell together with Nasrallah, Khamenei, Sinwar and all the eliminated members of the axis of evil’.

It comes after Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets towards the Israeli port city of Haifa a short while ago.

According to the IDF, most of the rockets were intercepted and others were allowed to hit open areas.

by Tom Midlane and Joseph Palmer

Iranian drone strikes appear to have destroyed important US military assets and caused massive damage to vital energy infrastucture, the Daily Mail’s Photo Evidence show has revealed.

Since the US and Israel launched the first wave of bombing on February 28 that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic has rained down drones on key strategic sites across the region.

In the latest episode of Photo Evidence, reporter Catherine Barnwell analyses satellite imagery to survey the effectiveness of the strikes and assess the scale of the damage.

Al Muwaffaq Air Base in central Jordan has become one of the most important hubs for US military operations in the region, she explains.

In the days leading up to the conflict, more than 60 US aircraft were spotted on the ground, among them some of the most advanced in America’s arsenal: F-35 stealth fighter bombers, F-16 fighter bombers and F-15 air superiority fighters.

Iran’s parliamentary speaker has claimed seven million Iranians are ‘ready to pick up arms’ and defend the nation.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf penned a message as Iran publicly declares it is preparing for a US ground invasion.’

‘We are not warmongers. But when the time comes to defend our homeland, every last one of us becomes a soldier.’

Donald Trump has claimed Ghalibaf is among the Iranian leaders negotiating with the US for a peace deal through intermediaries.

Military planners are being convened to look at how to de-mine the Strait of Hormuz as part of efforts to reopen the vital sea passage, Yvette Cooper has said.

Speaking at the start of the meeting, the Foreign Secretary stressed ‘diplomatic and international planning measures’ were the focus of a meeting of foreign ministers.

She said: ‘Alongside today’s discussions, we are also convening military planners to look at how we marshal our collective defensive military capabilities, including looking at issues such as de-mining or reassurance once the conflict eases.

‘But in today’s meeting, we are focusing on the diplomatic and international planning measures, including collective mobilisation of our full range of diplomatic and economic tools and pressures, reassurance work with industry, insurers and energy markets, and also action to guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers, and effective co-ordination that we need across the world to enable a safe and sustained opening of the Strait.’

by Aidan Radnedge, Senior News Reporter

Prices at the pumps are surging as the war in the Middle East intensifies costs for motorists – with diesel at one petrol station now approaching £3 per litre.

Millions of drivers are embarking on Easter getaway trips in the UK today despite the soaring cost of fuel – while others face rail shutdowns and packed airports.

Oil prices – which have a major impact on the cost of wholesale fuel – have hurtled upwards in response to Iran’s stranglehold on tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, following US and Israeli-led military strikes on the country.

The RAC says the average price of a litre of diesel at UK forecourts hit 184.2p, up by 29 per cent since the war started on February 28.

Average petrol prices have reached 153.7p per litre, a rise of 16 per cent over the same period.

One fuel station in Chelsea, west London. was seen selling diesel for 229.9p per litre, with the equivalent rate for petrol set at 288.9p.