As oil prices surged amid the widening war with Iran, Donald Trump suggested, without evidence, on Monday that the strike on an Iranian elementary school could have been carried out by Iran or “somebody else”.
During back-to-back appearances in Florida, Trump was asked whether the US would accept responsibility for a strike that hit the school and killed scores of people, many of them children, after video evidence showed a US Tomahawk struck the naval base next to it.
In response, the president claimed the bombing had been carried out by Iran or “somebody else”.
“It’s something that I was told is under investigation, but Tomahawks are used by others,” Trump said. “As you know, numerous other nations have Tomahawks. They buy them from us.”
Trump said the US had taken a “little excursion” to the Middle East “to get rid of some evil” but suggested the war, now in its second week, was ahead of schedule and near completion.
Yet as the economic toll of the joint US-Israeli operation deepened, Trump suggested the US may take the extraordinary action of lifting oil sanctions against “some countries” to ease prices. The US treasury has already issued a 30-day waiver allowing India to purchase Russian oil from tankers stranded at sea.
Speaking to reporters, Trump said the US would not let Iran “hold the world hostage” over oil.
“We will hit them so hard that it will not be possible for them, or anybody else helping them, to ever recover that section of the world if they do anything,” the US president said.
A video released by the Iranian news agency Mehr and geolocated to the site by the investigative collective Bellingcat, combined with other evidence from the site, indicate that the elementary school in Minab was hit during a set of strikes by the US, as it targeted an adjacent Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) naval compound. Munitions experts have told the Guardian that the missile shown in the video is clearly a Tomahawk, which is only used by the US in the current conflict.
Pressed by a reporter on why he had suggested Iran was responsible – a claim no one else in his administration had made – Trump replied: “Because I just don’t know enough about it.”
The strike demolished approximately half the school, killing dozens of seven- to 12-year-old girls as they attended morning classes.
Trump on Monday said he was “willing to live” with “whatever” the investigation concludes.
During his appearances on Monday, Trump boasted about the success of Operation Epic Fury, which the US launched on 28 February alongside Israel.
“We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” he said in remarks to House Republicans, who were holding their annual legislative retreat at the president’s golf resort in Miami.
“We go forward, more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long-running danger once and for all.”
Trump dismissed criticisms from some Democratic officials that his administration lacked a rationale for US-Israeli military action against Iran.
“I’ll give you the best reason of all,” he said. “Within a week, they would’ve attacked us, 100%. They were ready.”
Yet the president offered no new evidence to support the claim that the US acted pre-emptively to avert an imminent attack, but said Iran had “all these missiles – far more than anyone thought”.
Trump later told reporters that it was his view Iran was going to attack the US, based on the information he had received from his secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Kushner is Trump’s son-in-law.
“I thought if we didn’t do this at the time we did it, I think they had in mind to attack us,” Trump said.
The Trump administration has struggled to define its rationale for war, providing varied and at times contradictory explanations to the American public and Congress, ranging from nuclear threat to regime change.
Trump declined to directly answer whether Mojtaba Khamenei, the country’s newly appointed supreme leader, had a “target on his back”. He again expressed disappointment with the selection of Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US and Israeli strikes on Tehran last week.
Trump had previously dismissed the younger Khamenei as a “lightweight” and recently called the selection a mistake.
“I don’t know if it’s going to last,” he told NBC News.
At the start of the war, Trump urged Iranians to “seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country”. Israel has said it will target Iran’s new supreme leader.
In his Monday remarks, the president briefly recounted his exchange with the family members of the soldiers killed during the war with Iran as he attended the dignified transfer ceremony at Dover air force base this weekend.
“They all said one thing to me,” Trump said the families had told him. “‘Make sure you win, sir. Make sure you win.’”
