U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said his administration would not use nuclear weapons against Iran, following media reports that the Pentagon has developed strike plans that could involve the use of a powerful conventional bomb against the country.
Trump confirmed the U.S. military is considering the use of the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), also known as the “Mother of All Bombs.”
“The mother of all bombs is not nuclear,” the U.S. president told Newsmax during an interview at the White House when asked about the weapon. “No, it’s not nuclear at all. This is just an extremely large bomb. It’s like a tiny nuclear bomb. The mother of all bombs is one big bomb, but it’s not nuclear.”
He did not say if he had authorized its use. The president added that he wouldn’t use nuclear weapons against Iran. “We don’t have to,” he said.
The United States has the most nuclear weapons in the world, with Russia being second and China third, the president noted.
Trump also said that he would not send U.S. ground troops to Iran.
Trump said on Oct. 8 that the United States would not carry out new strikes against Iran before the midterm elections on Nov. 3, saying that his administration was having productive talks with Tehran on ending the war. Since then, neither Trump nor his administration has indicated how those negotiations are progressing.
U.S. military officials this week confirmed strikes against an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) surveillance boat in the Gulf of Oman, releasing a video of it being destroyed by helicopters. The strikes were launched on Oct. 6, two days before Trump’s remark about not carrying out new strikes.
The U.S.–Iran war has lasted around seven months, with the president previously saying that the conflict is designed to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He reiterated that on Thursday.
“We want to make it so that they will never have a nuclear weapon, because if they had it, they would use it, in my opinion, instantaneously,” he said.
A suspected nuclear facility in Iran known as Pickaxe Mountain, which is believed to be buried under layers of rock, may be struck by U.S. forces in the near future, Trump said.
“Now, we’re looking at Pickaxe Mountain. We may have to go there,” he told Newsmax. “We‘ll take a shot at that one. We’ll knock it out fast.”
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday that its member states would accelerate the release of some 100 million barrels of oil to shore up energy supplies as oil and gas prices remain elevated.
Following a meeting this week, the agency said its members “agreed to take all necessary steps to complete the remaining releases of around 100 million barrels [of oil] in a timely manner consistent with national circumstances.”
Since the war started, IEA member states have released about 330 million of the 400 million barrels of oil pledged in March, according to the agency. The United States accounts for more than 40 percent of the total released so far.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, remained about $100 per barrel, rising slightly on Friday morning to $106. West Texas Intermediate crude also increased to about $98 per barrel on Friday.
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