By Maya Gebeily, Emily Rose and Jarrett Renshaw
PALM BEACH, Florida/DUBAI/JERUSALEM, March 15 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump threatened further strikes on Iran's Kharg Island oil export hub and urged allies to deploy warships to secure the Strait of Hormuz, an artery for global energy supplies, as Tehran vowed to intensify its response.
With the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran in its third week, Trump said U.S. strikes had "totally demolished" much of the island and warned of more, telling NBC News
on Saturday, "We may hit it a few more times just for fun."
The remarks marked a sharp escalation from Trump, who had previously said the U.S. was targeting only military sites on Kharg, and dealt a blow to diplomatic efforts. His administration has brushed aside attempts by Middle Eastern allies to open talks, three sources told Reuters, as the conflict grows.
WAR, ENERGY CRISIS LOOK SET TO PERSIST
The war showed no sign of ending, and the strain on oil markets, with Iran essentially shutting down the vital Strait of Hormuz, looked set to linger.
Trump said Tehran appeared ready to make a deal to end the conflict but that "the terms aren't good enough yet."
Tehran's capacity to choke off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz - the gateway for a fifth of the world's oil - has vaulted from a long-standing danger to an urgent flashpoint, confronting the U.S. and its allies with a crisis that could upend the global economy.
Energy prices have spiked as the war triggers the biggest-ever disruption in oil supply, rattling markets and governments alike.
"The Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help — A LOT!" Trump wrote in a social media post on Saturday. "The U.S. will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well."
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Iran would respond to any attack on its energy facilities.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday they had carried out missile and drone strikes on targets in Israel and three U.S. bases in the region, calling the attacks the first round of retaliation for workers killed in Iran's industrial areas. The Israeli military said it was intercepting incoming launches.
Saudi Arabia intercepted and destroyed 10 drones in Riyadh and the east, the defense ministry said. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had no connection to the attack, semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Oil-loading operations have resumed at the global ship-refueling hub of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, after a drone attack and fire on Saturday, a Fujairah-based industry source said.
On Saturday, Washington warned U.S. citizens to leave Iraq.
The war that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched on February 28 has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in Iran, according to reports from governments and state media. At least 15 were killed when an airstrike hit a refrigerator and heater factory in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, the semi-official Fars news agency said on Saturday.
NO IMMEDIATE TAKERS ON TRUMP'S HORMUZ REQUEST
Russia is supplying Iran with Shahed drones to use against the U.S. and Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told CNN. Shahed drones have been linked to other attacks on countries in the region, although their manufacturers are not always clear.
Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform, urged China, France, Japan, South Korea, Britain and others to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz. None of those countries gave any immediate indication they would do so.
Takayuki Kobayashi, Japan's ruling party policy chief, declined to rule out the possibility, but told public broadcaster NHK that "the (legal) threshold is very high."
Japan interprets its pacifist postwar constitution to mean it can deploy its military if the nation's survival is threatened, but the government would have to invoke a 2015 security law that has not been used.
South Korea's presidential office said it would decide on Trump's request after a "careful review."
France is seeking to assemble a coalition to secure the strait once the security situation stabilizes, while Britain is discussing a range of options with allies to ensure the security of shipping, officials have said.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who replaced his slain father, has said the Strait of Hormuz should remain closed.
(Reporting by Maya Gebeily in Dubai, Emily Rose in Jerusalem and Jarrett Renshaw in Palm Beach, Florida; Additional reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Patricia Zengerle, Lisa Shumaker and Shri Navaratnam; Editing by Sergio Non, Chizu Nomiyama and William Mallard)
