Iran threatens US with prolonged, ‘devastating’ war as Trump warns of fresh strikes

Iran has warned the United States of immediate and potentially far-reaching consequences if Washington launches another attack, threatening that a future conflict could be more prolonged and devastating than the previous round of fighting.

US President Donald Trump (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has warned of a response to any “kind or level of threat” from the US, saying it would have no “geographical limits”. Tehran has also called for an updated list of potential US and Israeli targets, Iranian state media reported.

Iran has also warned that any future conflict could last longer than the previous one, with Washington unable to dictate how or when the fighting would end. The warnings come amid renewed threats by US President Donald Trump to strike additional Iranian sites.

Gulf nations fear that another attack on a better-prepared Iran could trigger a wider regional conflict, with neighbouring countries bearing much of the fallout, Bloomberg reported. Speaking to reporters on Sunday at a Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago, Trump claimed that the US could target remaining Iranian sites within “10 minutes”.

“We've knocked out their nuclear. We still have to take care of, I would say, one or two sites, but we can do that in ten minutes,” he said. “You probably could look at Pickaxe Mountain, and you have to take care of that.

We can do that all very quickly,” he added, referring to a suspected underground nuclear complex. Khamenei, who has not been seen publicly since the war began in February this year, reportedly issued the warning during a meeting with military chiefs.

The United Arab Emirates has called for a diplomatic solution, saying it had made extensive efforts to prevent the crisis from worsening. “We find ourselves drawn within a crisis that we worked diplomatically very hard to try to avert,” Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, told the IISS Manama Dialogue in Bahrain on Sunday, Bloomberg reported.

“We are clearly seeking a political off-ramp,” he added. Asked whether the US would “go back to war against Iran as soon as this week”, Trump dismissed the question as “stupid”. “Let's say I did — would I tell you?” he replied.

Trump reiterated that Iran would “never have a nuclear weapon”, while claiming that Tehran “wants to make a deal”. However, he questioned Iran's reliability, saying: “They make a deal and then they back out.” Previous negotiations between the US and Iran, mediated by several countries, including Pakistan, Qatar and Oman, have been marred by distrust.

Both sides have acknowledged their lack of confidence in the other. The US and Iran had agreed to a 60-day memorandum of understanding (MOU) and a ceasefire extension framework in June. However, the arrangement quickly unravelled over key sticking points, including navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and Iran's nuclear programme.

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