Trump says US will hit Iran 'very hard' after easing sanctions on Russian oil

DUBAI, Mar 13 (Agencies): US President Donald Trump said the US was going to be hitting Iran "very hard over the next week", shortly after issuing a partial 30-day waiver for purchases of sanctioned Russian oil, hoping to ease prices fuelled by the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Prices have been whipsawing on Trump's comments about the likely duration of the war, which has prompted Iran to attack vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of the world's oil.
Trump has previously said the war is "complete", and also promised to guarantee the safety of vessels in the Strait. In a Fox News interview aired on Friday, Trump said the US would escort shipping there "if we needed to".
Benchmark Brent crude eased about 1 per cent to around $99.50 in early European trading on Friday, still up almost 40 per cent since the start of the war, with European and Asian shares under pressure.
After nearly two weeks of war, 2,000 people have been killed, most of them in Iran, but many also in Lebanon and a growing number in the Gulf, which has for the first time in decades of Middle East conflicts found itself on the frontline.
US forces have also suffered casualties. The US military confirmed that four of six crew members aboard a refuelling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq were dead.
Iran fired another barrage of missiles and drones at Israel while the Israeli military said it had launched strikes across Tehran and continued to attack the Iranian-allied Hezbollah militia across Lebanon and in the capital Beirut.
Meanwhile, Russia sees a US sanctions waiver on its oil as an attempt by Washington to stabilise global energy markets, and the two countries have a shared interest in this, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
"We see actions by the United States aimed at trying to stabilize energy markets. In this respect, our interests coincide," Peskov said.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Thursday a temporary authorization which allows countries around the world to purchase Russian oil currently stranded at sea, extending a measure that had previously been granted only to Indian refiners.
Earlier, UN chief Antonio Guterres called on Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah to "stop the war" at the start of a visit to Beirut on Friday, as Israel expanded its strikes across the country.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes.
"My strong appeal to those parties, to Hezbollah and to Israel, is for a ceasefire to stop the war," Guterres said.
"This is no longer the time of armed groups. This is the time of strong states."
Later Friday, Guterres is to launch a humanitarian appeal to help the more than 800,000 people registered as displaced in Lebanon.
ASEAN ministers urge halt to Middle East war
ASEAN foreign and economic ministers on Friday called for an immediate halt to the war in the Middle East, and said the effects of surging oil prices and disrupted trade are already hitting Southeast Asia's economies.
Several members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have begun rolling out measures to counter the economic impact, with governments moving quickly to conserve energy, stabilise domestic markets and protect vulnerable sectors such as tourism.
Islamic nations D-8 summit postponed
An April summit of the D-8 bloc of Muslim-majority developed countries that includes Iran has been postponed due to the war in the Middle East, host Indonesia said Friday.
No new date was announced for the meeting that was to have stretched over four days, culminating in a leaders' summit on April 15.
Fresh strikes rocked Iran and several Gulf countries Friday as Israel and the Islamic Republic unleashed a new wave of attacks in a war that has ignited the Middle East and threatens to torpedo the world economy.
Two drones crash near
major Iraqi oil field
Two drones fell near a major southern Iraqi oil field, two oil ministry officials told AFP on Friday, as the war in the Middle East causes unprecedented upheaval in the sector.
"Two drones hit communications towers near the Majnoon oil field, without causing casualties or material damage," one official told AFP.
Iran's Larijani attends Tehran
march, dismisses attacks
Iran's national security chief Ali Larijani on Friday openly attended a mass rally in Tehran, dismissing the latest Israeli-US attacks on the capital as being "out of desperation."
"These attacks are out of fear, out of desperation. One who is strong wouldn't bomb demonstrations at all. It's clear that it has failed," Larijani told state TV while marching for the annual Quds Day rally in support of the Palestinian cause.