US-Iran War News Live Update: President Donald Trump said Thursday the United States is in no rush to end the war with Iran but “the clock is ticking” for the Islamic republic, as a third aircraft carrier arrived in the Middle East.
Iranian media reported blasts over the capital Tehran, a first since an increasingly tenuous ceasefire in the Middle East war came into effect two weeks ago.
It was not clear what caused the blasts, though an Israeli security source told AFP that their country was not currently striking Iran.
Prospective peace talks in Pakistan were hanging in the balance, meanwhile, with no sign of a return to diplomacy to end a standoff in the Strait of Hormuz.
Since Trump indefinitely extended a ceasefire in the Middle East war, the US and Iran have shifted their focus to Hormuz, a blockaded waterway through which a fifth of oil and liquefied natural gas exports ordinarily flow.
“I have all the time in the World, but Iran doesn’t — The clock is ticking!” Trump said on social media, adding that Iran’s military was destroyed and “their leaders are no longer with us, the Blockade is airtight and strong and, from there, it only gets worse.”
Trump had earlier ordered the US Navy to destroy any Iranian boat caught laying mines in Hormuz, which Iran has blockaded since the start of the war that spread across the region following a massive US-Israeli attack on the Islamic republic.