‘We know where he’s hiding, won’t kill him, for now’: Trump warns Iran, demands ‘unconditional surrender’
President Donald Trump said the United States would not kill Iran's supreme leader "for now" and appeared to demand Tehran's surrender, as US ally Israel traded fire with its arch foe for a fifth day on Tuesday.
The comments marked a dramatic escalation in Trump's rhetoric against Iran and its leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, fuelling questions as to whether Washington would join Israel's attacks after insisting it had no hand in the campaign.
Israeli warplanes targeted drone and missile sites with at least two waves of strikes in western Iran on Tuesday, the military said.
It also said it had killed senior Iranian commander Ali Shadmani in an overnight strike on a "command centre in the heart of Tehran", just four days after his predecessor, Gholam Ali Rashid, was killed in Israel's initial surprise attack.
The attacks drew retaliatory fire from the Islamic republic, with explosions heard over Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and air raid sirens sounding around Dimona, a southern town home to a nuclear power plant. There were no immediate reports of hits.
Days after a senior US official said Trump had told Israel to back down from plans to assassinate Khamenei, the US president appeared to put the option back on the table with a post on his Truth Social platform.
"We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there -- We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now," Trump said.
"But we don't want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin," he added, later posting a message saying: "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!"
Trump had said earlier in the day that he wanted "a real end" to the conflict.
A White House official said Trump was convening a meeting of his National Security Council Tuesday to discuss the conflict.
Despite mounting calls to de-escalate, neither side has backed off from the aerial blitz that began Friday, when Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign targeting Iranian nuclear and military facilities.
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