President Trump outlined the U.S. operation that rescued the two-man crew of an F-15 after the fighter jet was shot down on Friday in Iran. He called the mission “one of the largest, most complex, most harrowing” the U.S. military had ever conducted.
A diplomatic effort is underway to avoid a major escalation in the war, with the president considering, among other ideas, a Pakistani proposal for a 45-day ceasefire to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Hanging over the effort is Mr. Trump’s profanity-laced threat to destroy Iran’s power plants and other civilian infrastructure if Tehran doesn’t agree to a deal by Tuesday night.
Mr. Trump said Iran appears to be negotiating “in good faith” and any deal with Iran would need to ensure the “free traffic of oil.”
U.S.-Israeli strikes continue, with the intelligence chief of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards among dozens killed on Monday. Israel and America’s Persian Gulf allies are bearing the brunt of Tehran’s retaliatory fire. Four people were killed by an Iranian missile attack in Israel, the military confirmed.
Iran calls for human chains around power plants to protect them
An Iranian official urged youths to form human chains around power plants to protect them as President Trump’s latest deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz drew closer.
The official called on “all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors” to form human chains around power plants ahead of the threatened strikes.
“Power plants that are our national assets and capital, regardless of any taste or political viewpoint, belong to the future of Iran and to the Iranian youth,” Alireza Rahimi, identified by Iranian state television as the secretary of the Supreme Council of Youth and Adolescents, said as he issued the video call in a newscast.
Iran has formed human chains in the past around its nuclear sites at times of heightened tensions with the West.
Later, a Revolutionary Guard general urged parents to send their children to man checkpoints, which have been repeatedly targeted in airstrikes.
Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan, which is mediating indirect talks between Iran and the United States, said Tuesday that efforts to end the war were approaching a “critical” stage.
“Positive and productive endeavors in Good Will and Good Office to stop the war is approaching a critical, sensitive stage,” Ambassador Reza Amiri Moghadam wrote on X, without giving details.
The message came hours before a deadline set by President Trump for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz to shipping or face attacks on key infrastructure.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal is citing senior American negotiators and officials as saying chances of an agreement with Iran by tonight’s deadline are slim.