Trump says US may hit Iran’s Kharg Island again ‘just for fun’

US President Donald Trump threatened further strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island and urged allies to deploy warships to secure the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway critical for global energy supplies, as Tehran promised to ⁠intensify its response.

Trump told the NBC News broadcaster on Saturday the US strikes “totally demolished” much of the oil export hub and warned of more attacks on the island.

“We may hit it a few more times just for fun,” said the US leader.

The remarks – if carried out – would mark an escalation for Trump who previously said the United States is targeting only military sites on Kharg.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran would respond to any attack on its energy facilities. He also took exception to the US president’s comments.

“This is an illegal war with no victory. There are people being killed only because President Trump wants to have ‘fun’. This is what he has said,” Araghchi told CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday show.

‘Exercising restraint’

The US attacked Kharg Island from two locations in the United Arab Emirates: Ras Al-Khaimah and a place “very close to Dubai”, Araghchi earlier told the MS NOW news channel, calling it “dangerous” and saying Iran “will try to be careful not to attack any populated area” there.

US Central Command, the US military’s combat command responsible for operations in the Middle East, declined to comment on Araghchi’s claim. A diplomatic adviser to UAE President Anwar Gargash said on social media it has the right to defend itself but “still prioritises reason and logic, and continues exercising restraint”.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Sunday said it carried out missile and drone strikes on targets in Israel and three US bases in the region, calling the attacks the first round of retaliation for workers killed in Iran’s industrial areas.

On Saturday, a missile strike on an industrial site in the central Iranian city of Isfahan killed at least 15 people as workers were inside a factory, according to Iranian media.

Meanwhile, Tehran’s ability to halt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil cargoes pass, has triggered the biggest ever disruption in the global oil supply, rattling markets and governments alike.

“The Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help – ⁠A LOT!” Trump wrote in a social media post on Saturday.

“The US will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well.”

‘An existential battle’

Salman Shaikh, founder of the Shaikh Group, says countries are unlikely to join a US-led naval coalition aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz as the war escalates.

“Nations are not going to try to go into a situation which is going to bring immense harm to them and to their ships,” he said.

He added Iran believes it can sustain the confrontation through asymmetric tactics despite setbacks to its conventional military capabilities.

“The Iranian state is fighting an existential battle, which is now becoming a nationalist struggle,” Shaikh told Al Jazeera.

Trump also said Iran wants to make a deal but added the US isn’t ready “because the terms aren’t good enough yet”.

Araghchi later responded Tehran doesn’t “see any reason why we should talk with Americans, because we were talking with them when they decided to attack us”.

“There is no good experience talking with Americans,” he added.

The war that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched on February 28 has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in Iran, according to reports from governments and state media.