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NPR has confirmed more than a dozen U.S. service members were wounded and two E-3 Sentry aircraft were damaged in an Iranian strike on an air base in Saudi Arabia on Friday.
President Trump has repeated the assertion that Iran wants a deal while he has also ordered thousands of U.S. troops to deploy to the Middle East and even warned the U.S. may try to seize Iran's oil and Kharg Island — or blow it up.
How one month of war in Iran is felt in countries around the region
On Monday, Trump expanded a threat he had made if Iran refuses to open the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping passage, writing on social media the U.S. would not only destroy Iranian electric plants and oil wells but also „possibly all desalinization plants!“ That would potentially raise the number of civilian infrastructure sites targeted in the region.
Iran struck a desalination plant in Kuwait overnight. And three United Nations peacekeepers were killed in Lebanon in 24 hours as Israel continues to battle the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
Here's more news on Day 31 of the Iran war:
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The U.S. war toll rises
More than a dozen U.S. service members were wounded and two E-3 Sentry aircraft were damaged in an Iranian strike on an air base in Saudi Arabia on Friday, according to a U.S. official. Several of the service members have serious injuries. (NPR earlier reported as many as 20 personnel were wounded in the attack.)
The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Iran has targeted U.S. service members at bases throughout the region since the war began a month ago, in retaliation for the U.S. attacks and seeking to drive troops out of the region. Overall, the Pentagon has put the U.S. casualty toll at 13 killed and more than 300 injured. Many of the wounded had minor injuries and returned to duty.
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„Just look at what we did to their aerial command,“ Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on social media Monday. „High time to eject U.S. forces.“
Araghchi stressed that the strikes were intended to hit U.S. forces, not Saudi Arabia itself, saying: „Iran respects the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and considers it a brotherly nation.“
Later, Saudi Arabia's Defense Ministry said it intercepted four ballistic missiles headed toward the Riyadh capital area.
Trump says there's been „regime change“
Speaking Sunday on Air Force One on the way to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, President Trump told reporters he thought to some extent the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran has achieved regime change.
Why Trump's attacks and threats to Iran's Kharg Island are a big deal
„We've had regime change if you look already because the one regime was decimated, destroyed, they're all dead,“ he said, referring to top ranking officials killed in the war including the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
„The next regime is mostly dead, and the third regime we're dealing with different people than anybody's dealt with before, it's a whole different group of people,“ Trump said. On Monday, he called the new regime „more reasonable.“
After the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei early in the war, he was succeeded by his son Mojtaba Khamenei, who hasn't been seen in public and may be wounded, and who is widely considered to represent a continuation of Iran's hard-line theocracy.
„So I think we've had regime change, I mean you can't do much better than that,“ Trump said.
He said the administration was in both direct and indirect talks with the new regime. Iran has repeatedly denied any negotiations or talks are taking place.
„We have had no negotiations with America,“ only the exchange of negotiation requests and a proposal from the U.S. via intermediary countries such as Pakistan, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said on social media late Monday.
