WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump on Sunday appeared to extend by 24 hours his deadline for Iran to make a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face devastating infrastructure attacks. “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!” he simply said on his Truth Social platform, in an apparent extension of the deadline originally meant to expire on Monday, 6 April. The new deadline, 0000 GMT Wednesday, would mean another day for Tehran to attempt to placate the US leader or risk him following through on a threat to destroy the country’s power plants and bridges. In his expletive-laden post on social media, Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s power plants and bridges if it failed to meet his Tuesday deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping. He repeated an earlier threat to unleash “hell” but told US media there was a “good chance” of a deal being reached with Tehran. Trump said: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the … Strait, you crazy …, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP” Iran mocked his ultimatum, dismissing it as “helpless, nervous and stupid”. Trump’s new threat came after he announced that the second crew member of a US fighter jet downed over Iran had been successfully rescued in an operation deep inside hostile territory. Both the US and Iran had scrambled to locate the US serviceman in a mountainous region of south-western Iran. The pilot of the F-15 had been recovered shortly after the aircraft was shot down on Friday. The incident came after more than a month of war, as Iran continued to respond to US and Israeli air strikes with attacks on Gulf nations allied to the two countries. Iran has also significantly impeded transit in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas normally passes, leading to skyrocketing global oil prices and fears of higher inflation around the world. The disruption led Trump in March to announce a series of deadlines for Iran to reopen the strait. On Sunday he took to his Truth Social platform to reaffirm this demand. Afterwards, he told Fox News there was a “good chance” a deal would be reached on Monday, but he was considering “blowing everything up and taking over the oil” if a deal to end the war was not reached quickly. Trump has postponed deadlines for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz several times. On 21 March, Trump initially threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if the Strait of Hormuz was not “FULLY OPEN” within 48 hours. Two days later, he said he would not launch strikes for another five days until 28 March while “good” and “productive” talks with Iran continued. Iran denied any contact between its officials and the Trump administration had taken place. As that date approached, Trump again delayed the deadline by a further 10 days, until 6 April. Mahdi Tabatabaei, a spokesman for Iran’s president’s office, said the Strait of Hormuz “will be reopened” when “a portion of transit tolls is used to compensate for all the damage caused” by the war. Iran has indicated it planned to charge ships to pass through the strait. Gen Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi of Iran’s central military command said Trump’s threat was a “helpless, nervous, unbalanced and stupid action”, adding that “the gates of hell will open” for the US leader. Trump, who has held no public events since an address to the nation on Wednesday, seemed to confirm the new timing in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “We are in a position that’s very strong, and that country will take 20 years to rebuild, if they’re lucky, if they have a country,” he told the Journal Sunday. “And if they don’t do something by Tuesday evening, they won’t have any power plants and they won’t have any bridges standing.” In an interview with ABC News, Trump said the conflict should end in “days, not weeks,” but warned that without some kind of agreement with Tehran, there was “very little” that would be considered off-limits in terms of US action. Trump told Fox News that the United States had tried to send weapons to Iranian protesters opposing the cleric-run government by way of Kurdish intermediaries. Demonstrations erupted in December in Iran over the high cost of living — a product of punishing sanctions on Tehran. Those rallies ultimately escalated into anti-government protests that were squashed with deadly force. “We sent guns to the protesters, a lot of them,” Trump said. “And I think the Kurds took the guns.” Late last month, a top official in Iraqi Kurdistan said in an interview with AFP that Washington had not armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups exiled in the autonomous region. “We have not seen any attempts by the United States, any branch of the United States, to arm Iranian opposition groups in Kurdistan,” said the deputy prime minister of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, Qubad Talabani. Meanwhile, Israel has attacked civilian Iranian infrastructure sites and it was waiting for US approval to strike more energy facilities next week, according to defence officials. US-Israeli strikes also hit the Qasem Soleimani international airport in south-western Iran on Sunday. Iran has continued to fire drones and missiles at Israel and US Gulf allies. A residential building in the Israeli city of Haifa was hit directly by a ballistic missile on Sunday. Four people were injured. Earlier in the day, authorities in Abu Dhabi said they were battling fires at a Borouge petrochemical facility caused by falling debris from an Iranian missile. Kuwait said strikes by Iranian drones had severely damaged oil and petrochemical facilities. Industrial and fuel plants were also targeted in Bahrain. — Agencies
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