WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will receive a briefing on Thursday from the leader of the US Central Command, Brad Cooper, \u200bon new plans for potential military action against Iran, Axios reported on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The report cited unidentified sources. The White House and the US Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
CENTCOM has prepared a plan for a \u201cshort and powerful\u201d wave of strikes on Iran, likely including infrastructure targets, Axios reported, citing sources. A fragile ceasefire in the Iran \u200cwar began \u200cthree weeks ago. The war began when \u200bthe \u200cUS \u2060and \u200bIsrael attacked \u2060Iran on February 28. Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states with US bases. US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions. Trump has previously threatened to destroy Iran\u2019s civilian infrastructure. International law experts say such strikes may amount to war crimes. The 1949 \u2060Geneva Conventions on humanitarian conduct in war prohibit \u200cattacks on sites considered essential for \u200ccivilians.<\/p>\n
Another plan expected to be shared \u200bwith Trump is focused on taking \u200cover part of the Strait of Hormuz to reopen \u200cit to commercial shipping, the report added, saying such an operation may involve ground forces.<\/p>\n
The Iran war, which remains unpopular in the US, has shaken markets and raised oil prices. The war has brought traffic \u200cthrough the strait, a chokepoint for about 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments, \u2060close to \u2060a standstill.<\/p>\n
Washington hopes to make Iran more flexible at the negotiating table on nuclear issues, Axios reported.<\/p>\n
Another option that might come up in the briefing is a special forces operation to secure Iran\u2019s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, Axios said. Trump has cited Iran\u2019s nuclear program as an imminent threat. Tehran denies seeking nuclear weapons but says it has the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.<\/p>\n
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs \u200bof Staff General Dan \u200bCaine is also expected to attend Thursday\u2019s briefing, Axios reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will receive a briefing on Thursday from the leader of the US Central Command, Brad Cooper, \u200bon new plans for potential military action against Iran, Axios reported on Wednesday. The report cited unidentified sources. The White House and the US Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":97055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97056,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97038\/revisions\/97056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}