US President Donald Trump said he is not interested in negotiating
with Iran and raised the possibility that the Iran war would
only end once Tehran no longer has a functioning military or any
remaining leadership in power.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday,
Trump said the air campaign could make negotiations a moot point
if all potential leaders of Iran are killed and the Iranian
military is destroyed.
“At some point, I don’t think there will be anybody left
maybe to say ‘We surrender,'” Trump said.
IRAN PRESIDENT’S APOLOGY CAUSES STIR
Israel and Iran traded numerous attacks on Saturday as the
U.S.-Israeli war against Iran entered a second week. Iran’s
president apologized to neighboring states for its attacks on
U.S. facilities in those countries, in an attempt to cool anger
across the Gulf, but stirred criticism from hardliners at home.
“I personally apologize to neighboring countries that were
affected by Iran’s actions,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian
said, urging them not to join U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran.
He dismissed Trump’s demand for the Islamic Republic’s
unconditional surrender as “a dream,” but said its temporary
leadership council had agreed to suspend attacks on nearby
states unless strikes on Iran originated from their territory.
Amid possible divisions within Iran’s leadership over
Pezeshkian’s remarks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
in a televised address, said any members of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps who laid down their arms would be
unharmed.
Ali Larijani, Iran’s secretary of the Supreme National
Security Council, said on state television there was no rift
among Iranian officials over its handling of the war.
In Oslo, the U.S. embassy was hit by an explosion early on
Sunday, causing minor damage but no injuries, Norwegian police
said. Smoke was seen rising from the area around the embassy
compound, eyewitnesses told Norwegian daily Verdens Gang. It was
not immediately clear what caused the blast or who was involved.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Saudi Arabia has told Tehran that continued Iranian attacks
on the kingdom and its energy sector could push Riyadh to
respond in kind, four people familiar with the matter told
Reuters.
Saudi Arabia foiled a drone attack on Riyadh’s diplomatic
quarter, the Saudi defense ministry said early on Sunday. No
injuries were reported.
Pezeshkian’s comments caused a political stir in Iran,
prompting his office to reiterate Iran’s military would respond
firmly to attacks from U.S. bases in the region.
Hours later, the president repeated his statement on social
media but left out the apology from his speech that had angered
hardliners, including the powerful Revolutionary Guards.
The judiciary chief, Mohseni-Ejei, a hardline member of the
three-man council temporarily holding the powers of supreme
leader, said the territory of some regional countries was being
used for attacks against Iran and retaliatory strikes would
continue.
Hours after Pezeshkian’s announcement, the Revolutionary
Guards said their drones struck a U.S. air combat center near
Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. Reuters could
not independently verify that report.
ISRAEL WARNS LEBANON TO REIN IN HEZBOLLAH
The Kuwaiti army said on Saturday that fuel storage tanks
belonging to Kuwait International Airport were targeted in a
drone attack.
In Iran, local news agencies, citing an Iranian Oil Ministry
source, said its fuel depots were hit by strikes in three areas,
including Karaj, west of Tehran.
The Revolutionary Guards also targeted U.S. forces at a base
in Bahrain, Iranian state media said, and blasts were heard in
Doha.
Tehran has responded to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran by
hitting Israel and Gulf Arab states hosting U.S. military
installations. Israel has launched fresh attacks in Lebanon
after the Iran-aligned militia Hezbollah fired across the
border.
With the conflict spreading, Israel warned Lebanon of a
“very heavy price” if it did not rein in Iran-allied Hezbollah
militants, as it pounded the group’s strongholds with airstrikes
and mounted a deadly airborne raid in the east.
On Saturday morning, more buildings in the
Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut had been reduced
to mounds of smoking rubble, dust and tangled wires, Reuters
video showed.
The death toll from Israel’s attacks on Lebanon since Monday
rose to around 300, after at least four people were killed when
an Israeli strike hit an apartment in the Ramada hotel building
in central Beirut, Lebanon’s health ministry said. It was the
first strike to hit the heart of the capital since
Israel-Hezbollah hostilities resumed last week.
The U.S.-Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,332 Iranian
civilians and wounded thousands, according to Iran’s U.N.
ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani. Huge explosions were heard in
parts of Tehran, state media reported, while Israel said it had
struck Iranian missile sites and command centers.
Iranian attacks have killed 10 people in Israel. At least
six U.S. service members have been killed. Their remains arrived
on Saturday at an Air Force base in Delaware.
Iran’s apparent strategy of maximum chaos has driven up the
costs of the conflict by raising energy prices and hurting
global business and logistics links.
Kuwait’s national oil company began cutting output on
Saturday, adding to earlier oil and gas cuts from Iraq and
Qatar.
The war has roiled global markets and oil prices have hit
multi-year highs with the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut.
Hardline clerics have called for the swift selection of a
new supreme leader, Iranian media reported on Saturday, with
meetings occurring as soon as Sunday.
Published on March 8, 2026
