{"id":8080,"date":"2026-03-22T01:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T01:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/8080\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T01:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T01:12:07","slug":"trump-hints-at-winding-down-iran-war-as-us-deploys-more-troops-to-region-us-israel-war-on-iran-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/8080\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump hints at \u2018winding down\u2019 Iran war as US deploys more troops to region | US-Israel war on Iran News"},"content":{"rendered":"

United States President Donald Trump says he is considering \u201cwinding down\u201d the military operations in Iran<\/a> even as his administration deploys 2,500 additional marines to the region and asks Congress for more money to fund the war.<\/p>\n

In a social media post on Friday, Trump said the US was \u201cgetting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East\u201d.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

The mixed messages from Trump came after another climb in oil prices plunged the US stock markets. His administration also announced that it was lifting sanctions on Iranian oil already loaded on ships, a move aimed at wrangling the soaring fuel prices<\/a>.<\/p>\n

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a post on X shortly after Trump\u2019s message, said \u201cthe President and the Pentagon predicted it would take approximately 4-6 weeks to achieve this mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cTomorrow [Saturday] marks week 3 \u2013 and the US Armed Forces are doing an exceptional job,\u201d Leavitt wrote. \u201cDay by day, the Iranian Regime is being crippled, and their ability to threaten the United States and our allies is being significantly weakened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington, said four to six weeks is \u201cthe new number coming from the Trump administration about when Operation Epic Fury could possibly end\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe White House has never been clear since the war began on February 28 about just how long the war was going to take, how many different platforms it would be fought on, and what would be the final metric for the US deciding to declare victory,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But the three-week-old war has shown no signs of abating, with the US-Israeli forces attacking the Iranian capital, Tehran, and nearby areas as the country welcomed the first day of the Persian new year<\/a>, Nowruz. At least two people were killed by shelling on a residential area in the village of Dastak in northern Iran\u2019s Kiashahr, Gilan province\u2019s governor said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Iran fired \u2060two \u2060ballistic missiles at the Diego Garcia military base in the \u2060Indian Ocean, run jointly by the US and the United Kingdom, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Later that day, a senior Iranian official told Al Jazeera that Iran was not responsible for the attacks on the base, located around 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometres) from Iranian territory.<\/p>\n

Diego Garcia is one of the two bases the UK has allowed the United States to use for \u201cdefensive operations\u201d in its war against Iran.<\/p>\n

A source at Britain\u2019s defence ministry told news agency Reuters that the attack had occurred before it\u00a0gave specific authorisation\u00a0on Friday for the US to use the bases.<\/p>\n

Israel said Iranian forces continued to fire missiles at it early on Saturday, while Saudi Arabia said it downed 20 drones in just a couple of hours in the country\u2019s eastern region \u2013 home to major oil installations.<\/p>\n

US near completion of goals: Trump<\/p>\n

The US and Israel have offered shifting rationales for the war at different times, from hoping to foment an uprising that topples Iran\u2019s leadership to eliminating its nuclear and missile programmes.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz appeared to contradict Trump\u2019s statement on winding down the war, saying that Israeli forces and the US would \u201csignificantly\u201d increase the \u201cintensity of the strikes\u201d against Iran.<\/p>\n

That evening, following Iranian strikes on the southern Israeli city of Dimona and the nearby town of Arad, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to \u201ccontinue striking our enemies on all fronts\u201d.<\/p>\n

While Trump has claimed the US is \u201cvery close\u201d to meeting the war\u2019s objectives, his administration is moving to bolster its firepower in the region and request another $200bn from Congress to fund the war.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the US redirected another group of amphibious assault ships carrying 2,500 marines from the Pacific to the Middle East. The marines will join more than 50,000 US troops already in the region.<\/p>\n

Trump has said he has no plans to send ground forces into Iran, but has also asserted that he retains all options.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Friday said Iran has dealt \u201ca dizzying blow\u201d to its enemies and that the US-Israeli war on his country was a \u201cgross miscalculation\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a written statement<\/a> read on Iranian television to mark Nowruz, Khamenei praised the Iranians\u2019 steadfastness in the face of war. Khamenei has not been seen in public since he became the supreme leader following the Israeli strikes that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and reportedly wounded him.<\/p>\n

More than 1,400 people have been killed in Iran during the war, according to the authorities, while Israeli bombing has killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon. In Israel, at least 18 people have been killed by Iranian missiles, while at least 13 US soldiers have died so far, according to officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United States President Donald Trump says he is considering \u201cwinding down\u201d the military operations in Iran even as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8,19,246,9,7,13,501,2209],"class_list":{"0":"post-8080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-middle-east","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-us-canada","15":"tag-us-israel-war-on-iran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116270172910759605","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}