US hits Iran, says war cost at $37.5 bn

Fresh U.S. strikes triggered air defences in Tehran on Wednesday after President Donald Trump warned he was "not finished" with a war with Iran that has already cost his nation $37.5 billion.

After the foes' fighting over the strategic Strait of Hormuz led to the collapse of a preliminary deal, the Middle East war has expanded to include the region's other key chokepoint for global oil supplies.

Still, top U.S. diplomat Marco Rubio reiterated Washington's statement that it is willing to use diplomacy to find an agreement with Tehran.

"The problem we are currently facing is that they are not taking the negotiations seriously," Rubio said at a Southeast Asia ministers' meeting in Manila.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei has said that diplomatic exchanges with Washington through mediators are continuing.

The latest round of Middle East attacks included U.S. forces hitting targets such as "military logistics infrastructure," while Iranian state media reported strikes around the country, including Bushehr, which hosts a nuclear power plant.

"News sources reported minutes ago that air defence activity was heard in the west, east and northeast of Tehran," state TV posted on Telegram.

As the war nears the five-month mark and November legislative elections approach, Trump has faced intense political pressure to end the conflict, which is unpopular even with segments of his base.

Critics have pointed to the cost of the war that Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth said Tuesday had soared to $37.5 billion, defending a request for tens of billions in additional funding for the military.

The U.S. military said Tuesday it had launched an eleventh consecutive night of strikes against Iran, saying it targeted military sites to further degrade Iran's ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump had said earlier that the next U.S. target could be an underground complex known as Pickaxe Mountain, a subterranean nuclear site near Natanz where Western intelligence suspects Iran is building an undeclared enrichment facility.

Iran threatened reprisals, with the Khatam Al-Anbiya military command saying it would "consider it as an expansion of war in the region" if such an attack were carried out, threatening strikes on "all the interests of America, the allies and supporters," state-run broadcaster IRIB reported.

The warning came as Tehran broadened its offensive against U.S.-allied Gulf states after its Houthi allies threatened to blockade Saudi ports.

Two weeks after fighting resumed between the decades-old foes, Trump said Iran would need more than 20 years to recover from the damage inflicted in the Middle East war.

"If we left right now, it would take Iran 20, 25 years to rebuild," he said. "We're not finished at all... we're not leaving right now.”

AFP