Pete Hegseth warns of ‘most intense’ day of US strikes on Iran yet

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has warned that Tuesday would be the “most intense” day of US strikes yet, even as he blamed Iran for civilian casualties by claiming its forces were firing missiles from schools and hospitals.Speaking alongside Gen Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Hegseth alleged Iran was deliberately firing missiles from schools and hospitals, describing the country’s leadership as “desperate and scrambling like the terrorist cowards they are”.“Iran stands alone, and they are badly losing,” he added.Strikes by Iran and also US and Israeli strikesCaine said that US Central Command had so far struck more than 5,000 targets to date, destroyed over 50 Iranian naval vessels and hit several drone factories to degrade Iran’s autonomous weapons capability. He said US forces had dropped dozens of 2,000lb GPS-guided penetrating weapons on deeply buried missile launchers.Ballistic missile attacks continued to diminish, he said, adding that US forces and allies in the region had been intercepting one-way attack drones using fighters and attack helicopters.Hegseth said Iran’s neighbors had abandoned them, and that their proxies – Hezbollah, the Houthis and Hamas – have been “either broken, ineffective or on the sidelines”.When pressed on civilian casualties, which involved a strike that killed more than 165 people at an all-girls school, most of them children, Hegseth instead pivoted to accuse Iran of moving rocket launches “into civilian neighborhoods, near schools, near hospitals, to try to prevent our ability to strike”.He added: “That’s how terrorist regimes fight. They target civilians. We do not.” He insisted no nation in history had taken more precautions to avoid civilian deaths, though acknowledged that investigations “take time”.The Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school was struck on the first morning of the campaign, 10 days ago while about 170 girls aged seven to 12 were in class. First responders told the Middle East Eye it appeared to be a “double tap” strike on the school.A preliminary US assessment found that the United States was “likely” responsible, possibly due to dated intelligence that wrongly identified the site as still part of an adjacent IRGC naval base from which it had been physically separated since 2016.Hegseth declined to comment on reports that Iran’s new supreme leader had been wounded, saying only that it “would be wise” for Iranian leadership to heed the president and renounce nuclear weapons. Mojtaba Khamenei was on Sunday elevated to the position after his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed in the opening strikes of the campaign.Hegseth was emphatic that this conflict would not turn into another open-ended forever war that the US is entangled in.“This is not 2003. This is not endless nation-building,” he said. “Our generation of soldier will not let that happen again.”He explained how the “aftermath is going to be in America’s interests”, and added: “We won’t live under a nuclear blackmail scenario of conventional missiles that can target our people.”Donald Trump, he said, “gets to determine the end state” and “our will is endless”.Ahead of the press conference, Trump told Fox News that he heard Iran wanted to talk and that it was possible he’d have a negotiation with them, though it depends on the terms. But days earlier, on Friday, Trump rejected any off-ramp by posting on Truth Social that there would be “no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER”.