Trump threatens to obliterate Iran’s energy assets, Kharg Island; Australia fuel excise cut announced; Israel military operation expands in Lebanon

US President Donald Trump claims to have made great progress in talks with Tehran but also threatened to “completely obliterate” Iranian energy assets, including Kharg Island and possibly desalination plants, if a deal is not reached “shortly”.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday night AEDT that the US was in “serious discussions with a new, and more reasonable, regime to end our military operations in Iran”.

“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization [sic] plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched’,” Trump wrote.

The president, in an interview with London’s Financial Times, claimed the US military had “another couple of thousand targets to go” in Iran and that “a deal could be made fairly quickly”, but also said he wanted to seize Iran’s oil resources.