Trump vows intense strikes as Iran war heads into third week

President Donald Trump said in an interview aired Friday that American forces would strike Iranian targets "very hard" in the coming days, signaling an intensification of the US-Israeli campaign as the war in the Middle East approaches its third week.

Washington and its ally launched the offensive on February 28 with strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, triggering a widening regional war that has rattled global energy markets and drawn missile and drone attacks across the Gulf.

"We're going to be hitting them very hard over the next week," Trump told Fox News Radio, adding that he believed Iran's leadership could eventually be toppled by its own people.

"I really think that's a big hurdle to climb for people that don't have weapons," Trump said. "I think it's a very big hurdle... It'll happen, but it probably will be, maybe not immediately."

Trump's remarks came as US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Washington and Israel had already struck more than 15,000 targets since launching an air campaign against Iran on February 28.

"Between our air force and that of the Israelis, over 15,000 enemy targets have been struck. That's well over 1,000 a day," Hegseth told reporters, adding that Friday would see the highest volume of strikes so far.

Hegseth said the campaign had sharply degraded Iran's ability to retaliate.

Iran's "missiles, their missile launchers and drones (are) being destroyed or shot out of the sky," he said, adding that the volume of missile attacks had fallen by 90 percent and drone strikes by 95 percent.

He also said Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei was "wounded and likely disfigured" following the February 28 attack that killed his father.

Iranian officials have confirmed the younger Khamenei was wounded but have given no details, and he has not appeared in public since assuming the country's top post.

The conflict has triggered turmoil in global energy markets after Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow Gulf waterway through which about a fifth of the world's oil supply normally flows.

Oil prices surged above $100 a barrel earlier this week, while stock markets have wobbled amid fears of a prolonged disruption.

Hegseth dismissed concerns that the crisis in the strait could become a long-term problem.

"They are exercising sheer desperation in the Straits of Hormuz, something we're dealing with, we have been dealing with it, and don't need to worry about it," he said.

Iranian officials have vowed to keep the pressure on shipping through the strategic choke point, warning that the conflict could escalate if attacks on the country continue.