President Donald Trump announced “major combat operations” against Iran on Feb. 28, with massive joint U.S.-Israel strikes attacking targeting military and government sites, officials said.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was among those killed in Tehran on the first day of strikes, and his son Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen to succeed him. Iran is responding with missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, regional U.S. bases and multiple Gulf nations. Iran is also attempting to block some shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Israel is also intensifying its long-running strike campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
Trump says Israel will not attack Iranian gas field again unless Iran attacks Qatar
President Donald Trump in a social media post late Wednesday night, called for Israel to not attack the South Pars Gas Field unless Iran again attacks Qatar’s liquefied national gas facilities.
“NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar,” Trump said.
Trump said if Iran does so, the U.S. will respond and “massively blow up” the South Pars gas field.
“I do not want to authorize this level of violence and destruction because of the long term implications that it will have on the future of Iran, but if Qatar’s LNG is again attacked, I will not hesitate to do so,” Trump said in the post.
Trump began his post saying the U.S. was not made aware in advance of Israel’s attack on South Pars on Wednesday, an escalation in the conflict.
Trump also claimed that Qatar was also not aware Israel would strike the Iranian gas field.
“The United States knew nothing about this particular attack, and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape, or form, involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen,” Trump wrote.
Iranian state media said Wednesday that Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars Gas
one of the nation’s largest gas resources and a key lifeline for Iran.
