Trump says US war on Iran will end 'very soon' as IRGC calls it a failure

Day 214: Iran threatens strikes as it awaits US response to Hormuz plan

Day 213: Iran supreme leader says US will be forced out of Middle East

Day 212: Trump expects talks with Iran to resume in coming week

Day 211: US military activity surges around Strait of Hormuz

Day 210: Trump discusses Iran conflict with Xi Jinping

Iran will continue strengthening its military capabilities and introduce new weapons if it faces another confrontation, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spokesman said.

Hossein Mohebbi, speaking to Yemen’s Houthi-affiliated Al-Masirah network, said Iran was closely monitoring its opponents’ plans and movements and remained prepared for a possible new round of conflict.

“We will continue arming ourselves, and in any possible confrontation, we will bring new weapons to the field,” Mohebbi said.

His remarks signal that Tehran intends to use the period between conflicts to expand and adapt its military arsenal, amid continuing tensions with the US and Israel.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi affirmed that supporting and safeguarding the security and stability of the Arab Gulf states is one of the constants of Egypt’s foreign policy, stressing the need to maintain freedom of navigation in maritime corridors in accordance with international law.

Speaking during a government meeting, President El-Sisi also affirmed that the Egyptian state is making every necessary effort to de-escalate tensions in the region and prevent a renewed outbreak of fighting.

Iranian Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Mohammad Akraminia said Iran would pay a 5 billion-toman reward — about $20,000 — to citizens who kill or capture US soldiers entering Iranian territory in the event of a US ground invasion.

He said the reward would double to 10 billion tomans, or about $40,000, if a woman carried out the action.

Akraminia also said people in other countries across the region could potentially qualify for the reward if they killed or captured an American soldier. The announcement was presented as part of an Iranian military plan for a possible US ground incursion.

Akraminia said the scheme also provides for the weapon used in the operation to be purchased by the army at twice its value and displayed in a military museum.

The US is offering up to $15 million for information that disrupts the financial mechanisms of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force (IRGC-ASF), including information on three senior officials.

The officials are Brig. Gen. Abdollah Mehrabi, Ahmed Ja’farabadi and Ali Asghar Norouzi, according to the US State Department’s Rewards for Justice program.

“Somewhere between Iran’s missiles, drones, and victims is a money trail. Help us disrupt it,” Rewards for Justice said in a post on X.

The State Department says the IRGC Aerospace Force conducts operations, develops weapons and procures equipment for the IRGC. It identifies Mehrabi as chief of the force’s Research and Self-Sufficiency Jihad Organisation, Ja’farabadi as a senior official involved in operations and logistics, and Norouzi as chairman of the IRGC Cooperative Foundation.

Information about the officials’ financial activities, the Aerospace Force’s financial mechanisms, or associated individuals, organisations and activities could qualify informants for a reward of up to $15 million and potential relocation, the program said.

Oil prices fell 2.5% at settlement on Tuesday as investors focused on signs of a recovery in crude exports from the Middle East.

Brent crude futures dropped $2.69, or 2.6%, to settle at $102.59 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell to $89.38, a decline of $3.22 or 3.5%.

Brent is on track for a monthly gain of about 13%, while WTI is heading for a 4% rise.

Pakistan will use "whatever means are available" to defend Saudi Arabia against Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the country's defense minister said Tuesday, offering one of Islamabad's clearest indications yet that it could become directly involved in the widening regional conflict.

Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif declined to say whether Pakistani forces had already participated in airstrikes. He said, however, that Pakistan's military capabilities would be available to Saudi Arabia under a new mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

"I'm not going into detail, but obviously when I say that we are bound by this arrangement to defend Saudi Arabia, that means whatever means are available at our disposal, they'll be available to Saudi Arabia also. I think that's a categoric statement," Asif told reporters during a visit to Rome when asked whether Pakistan had been involved in airstrikes against Iranian operators in Yemen.

His response did not explicitly confirm Pakistani participation in any strikes. He also did not say whether Saudi Arabia, which has been repeatedly attacked by the Houthis in recent weeks, had asked for assistance.

Gulf oil producers are moving far more crude through the Strait of Hormuz than many expected possible, using US Navy-backed workarounds to keep one of the world’s most important energy corridors operating despite Iran’s pressure.

Oil and petroleum-product flows through the strategic waterway averaged 13.1 million barrels per day last week, according to marine-tracking firm Kpler. That is just below 80% of the 17.1 million barrels per day that crossed the strait before the war began.

“Given such a strong volume passing through the strait, it is clear Iran is losing its influence over it,” Matt Smith, Kpler’s director of commodity research, told CNN.

The rebound reflects a complicated effort by Gulf producers and the US.

Military-escorted tanker shuttles, discreet “dark” transits (AIS turned off) and rerouted export flows have helped restore a significant share of Middle Eastern oil shipments in recent months. 

US President Donald Trump said that US officials had been in contact with mediators seeking an end to the conflict with Iran.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said he expected the war to be resolved quickly and insisted the US would prevail.

“We’re going to win,” Trump said. “It’s going to go pretty quickly.”

He also said fuel prices would fall sharply once the war ends with a US victory.

The United States is targeting people and companies around the globe that it accuses of financing or enabling Iran's military supply chain, placing sanctions on 10 individuals and entities as it pushes forward with economic warfare against Tehran.

Meanwhile, Iran's Revolutionary Guard urged Americans in a message ahead of US midterm elections to take to the streets and rally against Donald Trump, claiming the US president's war in the Middle East has failed.

UAE motorists could see fuel prices rise in October after global oil prices spent much of September at elevated levels, although improving regional supply routes could ease some of the pressure.

Brent crude, the international standard, hovered at $105 a barrel since the start of the week. Last week, Brent oil had momentarily dropped to $97-levels. The price is volatile because of uncertainty about when the war with Iran will allow oil to flow freely again from the Middle East, including access to the Strait of Hormuz.

That leaves Brent nearly 50% above the roughly $72 a barrel seen in late February before the Iran war. It is also about nearly $40 higher than at the same point last year.

For the UAE, the important factor for October is not a single day's Brent price but the broader trend through September. With oil spending considerable time at elevated levels this month, the pressure on the next fuel-price review has increased.

A surprise decision by the U.K.'s counterterrorism police to release five suspects on bail during an investigation into a suspected bomb plot at a U.S.-operated air force base in England has deepened questions and uncertainty about the incident.

Police confirmed Tuesday that no explosives were found in three vans linked to the suspects, and said the decision to grant bail was grounded in "experience and strategy."

US President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday he was surprised that the five young British men who were arrested Sunday on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offenses near the RAF Fairford base were freed a day later.

"I wouldn't have done that," Trump said.

The base has been used by American bombers during decades of conflicts in the Middle East, including this year's war with Iran. Counterterror detectives have said they were investigating "multiple lines of inquiry," including whether the suspects had a link to Iran. Iran has denied involvement.

The head of U.K. Counter Terrorism Policing, Laurence Taylor, stressed that the suspects - all British nationals in their 20s - face stringent conditions and "absolutely remain under investigation."

"Now I understand why this development was surprising to some, but I would like to reiterate that this is an investigative decision, and one which is grounded in experience and strategy," he said.

Taylor said people's concerns about the incident were being "heightened by the international commentary that we are seeing."

Medication prices are soaring in Iran and some treatments have become hard to find, leaving patients and their families scrambling as a U.S. blockade and stepped-up sanctions squeeze the country's pharmaceuticals industry.

Some medicines have more than tripled in price, further squeezing Iranians' finances seven months into the country's war with the United States and Israel. Prices for food and other goods have skyrocketed even as unemployment has risen and the currency, which hit a record low this week, has lost half its value.

The war has become an economic endurance test. Iran has tried to push world energy prices higher with attacks on the region's oil shipping routes; the United States, in turn, has aimed to wreck Iran's economy by blockading its ports since June and slapping it with increasingly tough sanctions.

Iran's pharmaceutical industry is vulnerable because of its reliance on imports. So far there has been little sign of major shortages of medicines at Iran's hospitals, but the difficulties are showing at pharmacies.

The Lebanese military said on Wednesday that an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon wounded a soldier and three civilians, as the implementation of a deal between the two countries has stalled.

"A soldier was seriously wounded as the result of an Israeli targeting of an army vehicle" in Nabatieh al-Fawqa, Lebanon's army said in a statement, adding that three civilians were also injured.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported that "an enemy drone attacked Nabatieh al-Fawqa", a town that has been under repeated Israeli strikes in recent weeks despite a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident.

Iranian authorities said on Wednesday they received the formal US response to their proposal to end the Middle East war, state media reported, days after US President Donald Trump rejected the plan.

"At today's cabinet meeting, the American side's proposal was presented to President Masoud Pezeshkian by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi," government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani told the official IRNA news agency.

A US-led coalition deployed in Iraq more than a decade ago to fight jihadists concluded its mission on Wednesday, a move celebrated by the country's leaders, but which some fear will embolden pro-Iran armed factions.

Coalition troops deployed to Iraq and Syria in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group, which had seized large swathes of territory, committing massacres and forcing thousands of women and children into slavery.

The group was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but coalition forces stayed on to battle the group's remnants.

The United States and Iraq agreed in 2024 to wind down the coalition's mission, and its troops withdrew gradually from bases across the country, restricting their presence to the autonomous northern Kurdistan region.

On Wednesday, the US announced the mission's formal conclusion.

"Today, the United States and our Coalition partners formally concluded Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, consistent with the September 2024 US-Iraq joint statement and US national interests," the Pentagon said in a statement.

The US Department of Defense however added that it would "continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to our Iraqi partners".

The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) received a delayed report of an incident in the Strait of Hormuz.

A verified source reported that an LNG tanker was struck by an unknown projectile on Tuesday, September 29. Authorities are investigating the incident.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) received a delayed report of an incident in the Strait of Hormuz.

A verified source reported that a tanker was struck by an unknown projectile on Tuesday, September 29.

UKMTO advised vessels to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity to the organisation.

A British maritime agency said on Wednesday that unknown projectiles struck three ships in the Strait of Hormuz the previous day.

A crude oil tanker and two other vessels had each "been struck by an unknown projectile", the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre (UKMTO) said.

It had earlier described one of the vessels as an LNG tanker, before later describing it as a tanker.

Iranian officials indicated Wednesday they have received an official US response to Tehran's latest proposal to end the seven-month war, which US President Donald Trump had publicly rejected just days earlier.

The officials did not say what the response contained, and whether it was a rejection or not.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi presented the US. response to President Masoud Pezeshkian at a Cabinet meeting, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told the state-run IRNA news agency.

“We will make every effort to bring the agreement to fruition and will firmly stand up for the rights of the Iranian people,” Pezeshkian said. “The agreement must now be based on a win-win strategy.”

The Cabinet meeting follows Araghchi's return to Iran after travelling to New York for the UN General Assembly last week. While there, officials held indirect talks with US officials and also met with Qatari and Pakistani mediators on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders.

Wall Street stocks rose early Wednesday following a stable US inflation reading and data showing better hiring than expected.

Government data showed the US Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge stood at 3.4 per cent year-on-year in August, unchanged from the month before after a revision to the July data.

The report revealed lower pricing increases than expected, though the inflation reading is still well above the Fed's target level. 

About 20 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.1 per cent at 51,386.46.

The broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.4 per cent to 7,699.89, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.6 per cent to 26,958.66.

"Any good news on inflation right now is understandably interpreted as good news," said Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers.

Iraqi armed factions backed by Tehran said Wednesday that they were "not bound by any timeline or agreement" to surrender their weapons to the state, as the government seeks to disarm them under mounting US pressure.

A military spokesman for Kataeb Hezbollah, Jaafar al-Husseini, said at an event to celebrate the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces that the factions had been in talks on "regulating" their weapons but "have not yet received a response from the Iraqi government".

"Based on this, the Islamic Resistance declares that it is not bound by any timetable or agreement that any governmental or political party has spoken of or may speak of."

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Wednesday said there were "strong indications" Iran was involved in suspicious activity at a UK airbase that triggered a major security incident this weekend.

"There are strong indications that Iran played a part in what happened over the weekend at RAF Fairford," Burnham told the BBC, referring to Sunday's bomb scare near the airbase in southwest England, which is used by the US military in its war against Iran.

"Of course it remains an ongoing, complex, and serious police investigation," said Burnham.

Iran's embassy in London earlier said it "categorically rejects and strongly condemns" speculation it was involved in the incident. Police said on Tuesday that no explosives were found at the scene.

President Donald Trump said late on Wednesday (early Thursday in the Gulf) that the last American forces have left Iraq, declaring the end of the long-running US mission against the Daesh (Islamic State) group.

He hailed the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces as a "victory" for Washington, despite fears that it will embolden pro-Iran armed factions.

"This Day is a victory for the United States, a victory for Iraq, and a decisive victory over ISIS," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network, referring to the Islamic State group that the coalition battled.

He predicted that the separate war with Iran would be over “very soon.”

Trump said Iraq now had a "wonderful" prime minister and added: "I had a choice to stay or to leave, and felt, without question, that it was time for America to go home!"

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told troops at Quantico that American forces had “destroyed” major parts of Iran’s military — including its navy, air force, defence systems, leadership and military-industrial capacity — and that Tehran’s conventional shield and nuclear ambitions had been “crippled.”

He credited the troops with ensuring Iran “never gets a nuclear weapon.”

Hegseth also announced a new autonomous warfare command and a 20% cut in general and admiral positions, calling it “accountability,” not a “purge,” and vowing to revive the “warrior ethos,” rebuild the military and reestablish deterrence.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sent a letter addressed to “the American people” urging them to pressure Washington to end the war, but US officials rejected it as a propaganda “smoke screen” and said it did not signal any real shift in Tehran’s stance.

Iran’s government confirmed it had received a US proposal to end the war and discussed it at Cabinet level, even as hardliners and state media continued to frame the conflict as a US "failure" and mock US economic pressure claims.

Trump also said developments in Iran would be seen “very soon,” describing the campaign as a “total military victory” and claiming Iran had been “virtually destroyed” militarily and economically while the US had “almost total control” of the Strait of Hormuz.

US President Donald Trump said late on Wednesday that Washington faced a binary choice on Iran: escalate militarily or cut a deal — and he explicitly used the “blow them up” phrasing when asked how he could negotiate with leaders he has called “crazy.”

“We have to make that decision: We blow them up or make a deal.” Asked how he could reach a deal with Iranian officials he has described as “crazy,” Trump replied: “Maybe you blow them up.”

He added: “It’s gonna end very soon, one way or the other.” He made these remarks to reporters in the Oval Office.

The growing use of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite-internet service could deal the “final nail in the coffin” to Iran’s ability to control cyberspace, Deputy Communications Minister Mohammad Hafez Hakami said.

Hakami said Iranian authorities have relied on progressively tougher restrictions during past unrest — from blocking individual platforms in 2017 to cutting nationwide internet access in 2019, restricting major platforms after the 2022 protests, and disconnecting the network during unrest this year, as per UK-based Iran International.

But he said that strategy is becoming "less effective" as satellite-based services such as Starlink operate outside Iran’s state-controlled telecommunications infrastructure.

“If this continues, in the next crisis we may be forced to cut electricity,” Hakami said, according to Persian-language reports. He also said Starlink and direct-to-cell satellite services could render measures such as device registration and user-identity verification ineffective, according to Tehran-based news outlet Rouydad24.

Starlink is not licensed in Iran.

US President Donald Trump said more information would emerge about why Britain released on bail five men arrested over a suspected plot against RAF Fairford, a base used by US forces in strikes on Iran.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said there are “strong indications” Iran played a role, while stressing the investigation is ongoing. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected the claim on X, arguing the suspects’ release undermined the allegation. Police said petrol was found in the men’s vans but no explosives, the BBC reported.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his delegation to leave New York after US-Iran talks stalled, Axios reported, citing two US sources.

The US mission to the UN told Iran’s mission Monday that the delegation should depart immediately. Araghchi left several hours later and flew to Doha. However, Axios said he had already been scheduled to leave Monday night.

The White House had hoped for progress, but talks reached an impasse as Qatar continued mediating between Washington and Tehran.

Hardline Iranian lawmaker Hamid Rasaei has become the first sitting MP to be imprisoned during his term, sparking a fierce backlash from ultraconservatives against Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf and Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei.

The 10-month sentence, handed down by the Special Clerical Court over a 2024 newspaper article accusing Ghalibaf of "manipulating parliamentary documents", has deepened divisions within Iran’s ruling conservative faction at a time of heightened debate over negotiations with the US, the UK-based Iran International reported

Rasaei, a Tehran MP elected in 2023 and managing director of the hardline weekly 9 Dey before his parliamentary term, was convicted of “publishing falsehoods with intent to harm others” over a January 2024 article headlined “Ghalibaf’s Manipulation of Parliamentary Documents”.

The complaint was filed by Ghalibaf in early 2024, before Rasaei took his seat in parliament, and was adjudicated by the Special Court of Clergy because Rasaei is a cleric.

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