IRAN remained defiant as fresh explosions thundered out in Tehran on Tuesday, insisting it was not seeking a ceasefire even as US President Donald Trump upped his threats surrounding the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
The conflict has engulfed the Middle East and roiled energy markets since the February 28 US-Israeli strikes that killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and triggered the war, with Tehran on Tuesday vowing no crude exports would leave the Gulf if the bombardment continued.
The Pentagon had earlier announced its most intense strikes to date, but Iran has so far refused to bow to the pressure.
Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former top Revolutionary Guards commander and key figure after Khamenei’s killing, said in an English-language post on X: “Certainly we aren’t seeking a ceasefire.”
“We believe the aggressor must be punished and taught a lesson that will deter them from attacking Iran again,” he added.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had previously told a news conference that Tuesday would “be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran — the most fighters, the most bombers”.
Iranian attacks on shipping have closed the strategic Strait of Hormuz, where a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil and a fifth of all LNG normally pass, and Trump warned Iran against mining the strait in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“If for any reason mines were placed, and they are not removed forthwith, the military consequences to Iran will be at a level never seen before,” he wrote.
His post came after CNN — citing anonymous sources familiar with US intelligence reports — reported that Iran had indeed begun laying explosives in the waterway.
Two rounds of explosions shook Tehran on Tuesday evening, AFP journalists reported, with no immediate information available about the intended targets.
In the capital, one woman in her forties said she found some reassurance in her impression that the bombings “don’t target ordinary buildings”.
But she noted that it was “the noise of the bombings that is extremely disturbing”.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards replied by announcing a fresh salvo of missiles against Israeli cities and US targets in the region, with AFP journalists later hearing explosions in Bahrain’s capital Manama.