US Expands Iran Strikes to 11th Night as Trump Threatens Underground Nuclear Site
Pentagon says war has cost $37.5 billion and wounded more than 500 troops as Rubio warns of 'dangerous precedent' over the Strait of Hormuz
The U.S. military carried out its 11th consecutive night of strikes on Iran, expanding the bombing campaign to provinces not previously hit and targeting aircraft hangars and drone storage sites, Al Jazeera and CBS News reported.
President Donald Trump threatened to strike an underground nuclear facility known as Pickaxe Mountain, telling reporters "we'll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily," according to CNBC. Iran's air defenses activated over Tehran as explosions were heard across the capital, Al Jazeera reported.
The war's toll on the U.S. is mounting. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Senate panel the conflict has cost $37.5 billion so far — an increase of nearly $8 billion since the last public estimate — as the Pentagon seeks tens of billions more in supplemental funding, the Guardian and CBS News reported. More than 500 American troops have been wounded, a U.S. official told the Associated Press. Hegseth's testimony grew combative after a Michigan senator called him a "failure," Al Jazeera reported.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Southeast Asian foreign ministers that Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil once flowed, would set a "dangerous precedent" with consequences reaching beyond the Middle East. Rubio said Washington remains open to negotiations but that Tehran has not been "serious," and warned Iran faces consequences for violating its commitments.
Oil prices climbed on the news, with Brent crude trading near $92 a barrel and U.S. benchmark WTI near $85, their highest levels since mid-June, the Guardian reported.
The political costs are rising too. House Speaker Mike Johnson urged Trump to "wrap it up" in Iran, even as the president rejected any suggestion that November's midterm elections were shaping his war strategy, the Washington Examiner reported. Trump separately said he would authorize U.S. airlines to resume direct flights to Lebanon, suspended since a 1985 hijacking.
Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told an Iranian journalist he was pulled from rubble after the U.S.-Israeli strike that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the war's first day and has since moved constantly around Tehran by car for safety, the Guardian reported. He said Israel and the U.S. had accurate intelligence on senior officials' locations.
— Compiled from reporting by the Guardian, Al Jazeera, CNBC, CBS News and the Washington Examiner.