President Donald Trump warns of unlimited weapons supply after sixth US death as Iran attacks Gulf nations

The Trump administration and Israel were contemplating a longer war in the Middle East, as Iran continued to lash out in all directions on Tuesday, striking the US embassy in Saudi Arabia and other sites across the region.

No one was injured in the drone attack, but US President Donald Trump vowed to swiftly retaliate, without saying what more the US military might do, having already hit at least 14 cities across, killing Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many of his senior aides.

“You’ll find out soon” Mr Trump said of his next move. He told reporters he still didn’t envisage the need for US boots on the ground, even though he hasn’t ruled out using ground forces.

“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘there will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Mr Trump told The New York Post.

In a Truth Social post, the president boasted that America had huge stockpiles of missiles and other munitions to maintain a longer war.

“We have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons,” he wrote. “The United States is stocked, and ready to WIN, BIG!!!”.

Meanwhile Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged the war could continue for “some time” but insisted it won’t take years.

“It’s not an endless war,” Netanyahu said on Fox News.

Six US service personnel have been killed so far with another 18 injured. Iran’s death toll was at least 550, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.

Some 52 people were reportedly killed by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, while at least 10 people have been killed in Israel, with six dead in other Gulf countries, which host US bases.

Having launched the war alongside Israel on Saturday, Mr Trump has been under pressure to articulate his plan to achieve his goal of regime change and how long that could take, having promised voters at the 2023 election that he would keep America out of foreign conflicts.

In 13 months since taking office, Mr. Trump has authorised military action in seven nations. The latest war is shaping up to be America’s most expansive military conflict since its 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“Right from the beginning, we projected four-to-five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that,” Mr Trump said at the White House on Monday.

“Whatever the time is, it’s okay, whatever it takes.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that “the hardest hits” on Iran were yet to come.

Mr Rubio said the US had attacked Iran “pre-emptively” on Saturday because it knew “there was going to be Israeli action”.

“It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone – the United States or Israel or anyone – they were going to respond, and respond against the United States,” Rubio told reporters.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

His statements drew criticism of mixed messaging about the case for going to war.

The first bombs dropped just hours after Oman’s foreign minister, who mediated between the two sides, publicly claimed on US television that “peace was within reach”.

President Trump, who has seen his approval ratings plummet in recent weeks, said he had ordered the attack to thwart Tehran’s nuclear weapon capabilities.

Mr Netanyahu said it was now or never.

“We had to act now ... If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future,” he said.

“(Iran) started building new sites ... underground bunkers that would make their ballistic missile program and their atomic bomb program immune within months,” Netanyahu said.

Meanwhile, cracks have appeared in President’s Trump’s relationship with Britain’s Prime Minister Kier Starmer, who pointedly said his “government does not believe in regime change from the skies”.

Mr Starmer was defending his decision to refuse UK bases to be used by the US in the initial strikes against Iran at the weekend.

Starmer said “that decision was deliberate” and “I stand by it”.

“We all remember the mistakes of Iraq,” he said.

“Any UK actions must always have a lawful basis and a viable thought-through plan.”

The UK Prime Minister has since given permission for the US to use British bases to target Iran’s missile launchers in order to protect neighbouring allies that have have been struck. Just hours after Mr Starmer’s announcement, a drone hit RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.

However, Britain’s delay in granting permission for allowing the US Air Force to launch raids from Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean and RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire had disappointed Mr Trump.

“That’s probably never happened between our countries before,” he told UK media.

Some military experts say the Iran regime is too strong and pervasive for airstrikes alone to dislodge it.

The University of WA’s Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern Studies Amin Saikal said the regime was built for survival, making a long war likely.

“The regime has every incentive to do what it must to ensure its survival,” he wrote in The Conversation. “There are many regime enforcers and defenders, led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (and its subordinate paramilitary Basij group, across the country to suppress any domestic uprisings and fight for the endurance of the regime.

“Their fortunes are intimately tied to the regime. So are a range of administrators and bureaucrats in the Iranian government, as well as regime sympathisers among ordinary Iranians. They are motivated by a blend of Shi’ism and fierce nationalism to remain loyal to the regime.”

Angrily rejecting reports that Iran’s three-member interim leadership council was talking or ready to negotiate with Washington, top security official Ali Larijani accused the US President of “delusional fantasies”.

“We will not negotiate ... Iran, unlike the United States, has prepared itself for a long war,” he posted on X.

“TRUMP HAS BETRAYED ‘AMERICA FIRST’ TO ADOPT ‘ISRAEL FIRST’,” he wrote in another post, imitating the president’s social media style.

Iran maintained drone and missile attacks on Israel and US bases on Tuesday, with Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Iraq also on the receiving end of Tehran’s backlash.

United Arab Emirates’ Defence Ministry said its air defenses were “dealing with a barrage of ballistic missiles”.

The West understands Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke to UAE President HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan to discuss the evolving situation. He thanked the president for the care and hospitality shown to Australians who’ve been stranded by the conflict.

They also discussed the importance of the resumption of commercial flights as soon as possible.

Expats in the Dubai said they were in disbelief at witnessing missiles being intercepted overhead against the backdrop of the affluent city’s futuristic skyline.

Former England footballer Rio Ferdinand told the BBC: “It’s frightening when you hear missiles, planes and fighter jets - I don’t know what it is - going above us, and you’re hearing big bombs, and what that is we don’t know as we don’t know the details of what they are.”

Australians stranded in the UAE have been warned that posting unverified conflict footage could lead to $77,000 in fines and even imprisonment.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said Australians stationed at the Al Minhad air base in the UAE were all “safe and accounted for” after an Iranian drone attack at the weekend.

Iran has threatened to “set fire” to any ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

The strait is the world’s most vital oil export route, which connects the biggest Gulf oil producers with the Arabian Sea. It is about 33km wide at its narrowest point.

The move threatens to choke a fifth of global oil flows and send crude prices sharply higher.

US Central Command announced 11 Iranian ships had been sunk and claimed the strait remained open.

As well as its flight missions over Iran, Israel was also striking Iran-allied Hezbollah militia targets in Lebanon on Tuesday. Hezbollah had fired several rockets at Israel following the death of Iran’s supreme leader. Hundreds of Beirut residents have been forced to evacuate to escape the bombing.

Israel’s military said it had killed Islamic Jihad’s top commander in Lebanon, Abu Hamza Rami.

Qatar’s Defense Ministry said its air force had shot down two Su-24 bombers coming from Iran.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, said more forces were still on their way to the region. “The military objectives ... will take some time to achieve, and in some cases will be difficult and gritty work,” he said.

Satellite imagery has captured what appears to be the first known strikes on an Iranian nuclear site since the start of the US-Israeli air operation.

The independent Institute for Science and International Security said imager showed two strikes on access points to the underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, which was hit by the US last June. At the time President Trump said it had been “obliterated”.

David Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector and founder of the institute, said the strikes appeared to have occurred sometime between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning local time, based on the imagery his group reviewed.

Iran’s nuclear program is among the reasons Israel and the US have given for the attacks, alleging Iran was getting too close to being able to make a nuclear bomb. Iran has repeatedly denied seeking a nuclear arsenal.

Albright’s report said Vantor’s imagery showed that three buildings at Natanz had been destroyed.

Two were personnel entrances to two underground halls housing thousands of centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium for use in power plants or weapons depending on the duration. The third building destroyed covered the only vehicle access ramp to the underground halls, it said.

A CNN poll found 59 per cent of Americans disapprove of the war, while a Reuters-Ipsos poll cited only 27 per cent supported the military campaign.