Live Updates En español: conflicto en Medio Oriente
• Escalating conflict: US President Donald Trump signaled that attacks on Iran will intensify this weekend, and a series of major explosions rocked Tehran late Saturday as Israel launched new strikes. Iran’s top security official said Trump “must pay the price” for the war.
• Explosions in Gulf nations: Iran’s president apologized for attacks in neighboring Gulf states Saturday, but Tehran has vowed to continue striking US targets in the region. Fresh blasts shook parts of Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE, including in Dubai’s busy Marina district.
• Return of fallen troops: Trump visited a Delaware air base Saturday for the dignified transfer of six US service members killed in the conflict.
• Economic impacts: US gas prices have reached their highest average since August 2024, driven in part by attacks on oil facilities and the virtual closure of a key shipping lane.
President Donald Trump said the United States does not want Iranian Kurdish groups involved in the war with Iran, contradicting previous efforts by the CIA, reported by CNN, to arm them in the hopes of sparking an uprising.
“We’re not looking to the Kurds going in. We’re very friendly with the Kurds, as you know, but we don’t want to make the war anymore complex than it already is,” Trump said aboard Air Force One on Saturday.
“Yeah, I have ruled it out. I don’t want the Kurds going in. … They’re willing to go in, but I’ve told them, I don’t want them to go in,” Trump said. “The war’s complicated enough without having — getting the Kurds involved.”
Sources previously told CNN that the CIA was working to stoke an uprising in Iran by arming the Kurdish forces, and they said that the Trump administration had been in active discussions with Iranian opposition groups and Kurdish leaders in Iraq about providing them with military support.
As CNN has reported, the Kurds, an ethnic minority group, make up about 8% to 17% of the Iranian population, according to British government estimates, and they have historically sought greater independence and improved rights. There are also Kurds in Turkey, Iraq and Syria.
President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One following the dignified transfer of the six service members killed this week in Kuwait, recognized the somber moment, saying, “It’s a very sad day.”
When asked about whether the ceremony made him reconsider the war, Trump doubled down on the US military operation and said, “We’re winning the war by a lot.”
He went on to say that the parents of the killed service members “were so proud” and that such deaths are “always a very sad thing.”
The president has previously said there will likely be more US casualties in the Iran war. Asked Saturday whether he thought he would have to attend more dignified transfers, Trump said, “I’m sure. I hate to … but it’s a part of war.”
President Donald Trump on Saturday slammed the United Kingdom for “finally giving serious thought” to deploying aircraft carriers, hours after the British defense ministry said one of its carriers has been put on an increased state of readiness.
“The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East,” Trump said on Truth Social.
The president then addressed Prime Minister Keir Starmer directly, threatening that the US will “remember” the move.
“That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer — But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!,” Trump said.
Britain’s defense ministry also announced earlier Saturday that the US has started using British bases “for specific defensive operations to prevent Iran firing missiles into the region.”
Asked by reporters on Air Force One about the British government’s offer of use of bases, Trump reiterated that the move it is too late.
“We don’t need them. It’s not the right time. It would have been nice to have had them two weeks ago,” Trump said.
Some context: The aircraft carrier’s state of readiness doesn’t mean that the British government has decided to deploy the HMS Prince of Wales nor that the warship cannot be involved in other planned missions, CNN understands.
Starmer has sought to distinguish between the Americans’ operations, and initally denied the US permission to use British bases for offensive strikes on Iran.
President Donald Trump on Saturday cast blame upon Iran for the strike on an elementary school in southern Iran that killed at least 168 children and 14 teachers, contradicting analyses from CNN, other media outlets and experts that suggested the US military was likely responsible.
“Based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. Trump further characterized Iranian munitions as “very inaccurate.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also blamed Iran, telling reporters, “The only side that targets civilians is Iran.”
The White House has not previously ruled out that US military personnel carried out the strike, and Hegseth said Wednesday that an investigation was ongoing.
CNN previously reported that satellite imagery, geolocated videos, public statements from US officials and the assessment of munitions experts suggest that the Shajare Tayyiba elementary school in Minab was hit on February 28 at around the same time as an attack that American forces likely carried out on a neighboring Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval base.
This post has been updated with additional information.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN’s Jessica Dean that President Donald Trump has not made a case for the Iran war and has fallen short on his promise to lower costs.
Jeffries said taxpayer dollars should make life “more affordable,” but Trump is instead spending billions to “drop bombs in another war in the Middle East.”
The House minority leader said Trump’s divergence from campaign promises is “part of a pattern of candidate Trump promising one thing, and then President Trump doing the exact opposite.”
Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, has said US President Donald Trump’s war against Iran is the result of his “international miscalculation,” in that Trump thought he could repeat the Venezuela model in Iran, but is now caught in a strategic deadlock.
In an interview broadcast on Iranian state TV Saturday, Larijani said the US was now “stuck in the quagmire of its own miscalculations,” and that Trump had failed to achieve his aims through strikes on Iran.
Larijani said the killing of Iran’s leadership and more than a thousand Iranian people will not remain an unanswered crime, and Iran will not retreat until “retaliation” is achieved and the aggressor is punished.
“We will not let Trump go, he must pay the price,” Larijani said.
The families of the six US Army Reserve soldiers who were killed this week in Kuwait watched as their loved ones were brought home during a dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Saturday.
President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Vice President JD Vance joined top military officials observing the solemn event on an overcast afternoon.
As the transfer cases were taken from a C-17 across the tarmac at Dover Air Force Base, Trump saluted wearing a white ball cap with gold “USA” lettering.
The military identified the six service members killed in an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait on March 1 as Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, Capt. Cody Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens and Sgt. Declan Coady. Marzan is believed to have been killed in the strike, but is still awaiting final positive identification by a medical examiner.
