US President Donald Trump waits to speak during a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House on March 2, 2026, in Washington, DC.
Image: SAUL LOEB / AFP
US President Donald Trump has refused to rule out sending ground troops into Iran as he warned that the spreading Middle East war, unleashed by US-Israeli strikes, could last longer than a month.
Israel on Monday traded fire with Iran-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iranian counterattacks hit Gulf states and a British base in Cyprus. International gas prices rose and shares went down.
Trump said he would not rule out sending ground troops into Iran.
"I don't have the yips with respect to boots on the ground -- like every president says, 'There will be no boots on the ground.' I don't say it," he told the New York Post.
"I say 'probably don't need them,' [or] 'if they were necessary,'" he said.
Trump later said at the White House he had taken the "last, best chance" to stop Iran's alleged nuclear bomb programme and "eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime".
He said the US attack was meeting its goals ahead of schedule, but also warned the war could go "far longer" than his initial estimates of about a month.
The Israeli military meanwhile said it had begun a new "broad strike" in the "heart of Tehran" after generals vowed to step up attacks on "key elements of the regime".
Loud explosions were heard in several parts of the Iranian capital, AFP journalists said, shaking apartment buildings in the centre.
Iran's president appointed Revolutionary Guards general Majid Ebnelreza as acting defence minister after his predecessor was killed in Israeli-US strikes.
AFP also reported that at least one drone crashed into Britain's RAF Akrotiri military base in Cyprus in the early hours of Monday and another two were intercepted, prompting an evacuation of the facility.
While Greece said it was sending two frigates and two F-16 jets to Cyprus, the island's government said it would seek guarantees that British bases there would not be used for anything other than humanitarian purposes.
Britain had agreed on Sunday to allow the United States to use British military bases to fire "defensive" strikes at Iranian missile systems after initially refusing - but this was not enough for Trump, who took aim at British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a newspaper interview.
"It took far too much time. Far too much time," Trump told the Daily Telegraph, adding he was "very disappointed" with the initial refusal.
Starmer told parliament he "stands by" the decision not to take part in the initial strikes.
Iran has hit targets across the Gulf, with the army saying it had launched 15 cruise missiles on a US air base in Kuwait and vessels in the Indian Ocean.
QatarEnergy halted liquefied natural gas production after a processing base and a power plant in Qatar were hit, one person was killed as an oil tanker was targeted off Oman. British officials said a vessel in a Bahrain port had been struck by "unknown projectiles".
The US embassy in Kuwait, where black smoke could be seen, said in a statement that people should not come to the mission and "take cover" in their residence.
Iran's security chief Ali Larijani wrote on X: "We will fiercely defend ourselves and our six thousand years old civilization regardless of the costs and will make the enemies sorry for their miscalculation."
Iran's Revolutionary Guards issued statements describing waves of missile and drone attacks on Israel, with targets including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office along with security sites in Tel Aviv, Haifa and east Jerusalem. The Guards claimed strikes targeting 500 sites in all.
The Iranian Red Crescent meanwhile reported that "131 cities have been affected" by US-Israeli strikes "and, regrettably, 555 of our compatriots have been killed". Iranian officials confirmed the killings of three Guards members and five army personnel.
Cape Times