Trump reportedly mulls raid to ‘extract’ Iran’s uranium

The US president previously said he could seize Kharg Island to control Tehran’s oil exports, as in Venezuela

President Trump remains “generally open to the idea” of launching a US special operations raid on Iranian nuclear sites to capture some 450 kilograms of enriched uranium believed to be stored there, according to the Wall Street Journal's sources.

The US president also told the Financial Times that he was not ruling out the possibility of American forces seizing Iran’s key export hub on Kharg Island in order to take control of the Islamic Republic’s oil exports.

At the same time, Trump insisted that “direct and indirect” negotiations with Iran were going “extremely” well and that Tehran was “gonna do everything that we want them to do.”

The escalatory statements follow a series of incidents that risk plunging the region into deeper chaos. Kuwait said its power generation and water distillation plant was damaged in a strike on Monday, while Iranian media reported a suspected US-Israeli attack on the Tabriz Petrochemical Company. 

Read more

Here are the latest developments:

• Kuwait said one of the country’s power generation and water distillation plants was damaged in what it described as an attack as part of the “largest Iranian aggression.” 

• Tehran previosusly reported a strike on the Tabriz Petrochemical Company. Oil prices surged above $115 a barrel as the new reports added to concerns over energy supply disruptions.

• The foreign ministers of Pakistan, Türkiye, Egypt and Saudi Arabia met in Islamabad for peace talks earlier on Sunday. Iran has received proposals from the United States through mediators, but reportedly considers them “highly unreasonable.”

• The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that it would “begin bombing” the homes of US and Israeli officials and military commanders in retaliation for repeated strikes on residential buildings that have killed nearly 2,000 civilians in Iran over the first month of the war.

Follow our live coverage below for continuous updates. You can also read our previous updates here.