President Donald Trump warned on Wednesday that he would renew US attacks on Iran, saying Tehran had taken too long to agree a deal to end the Middle East war and accusing its negotiators of "playing us for suckers."
The remarks came after Iran and the US once again traded fire following the downing of an American helicopter, further straining a ceasefire that took effect in April but has been marked by sporadic flare-ups of violence.
The exchange drew international calls for restraint on the eve of the World Cup, which the US is co-hosting and Iran is participating in, including from the head of the United Nations who cautioned against a return to all-out war.
"We hit them hard yesterday. We're going to hit them again hard today," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
"We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers."
The US leader had earlier accused Iran of taking too long to negotiate a peace deal after weeks of talks and warned it would "have to pay the price", offering a different assessment to a day before when he said talks to agree a peace deal were in the "final throes."
"Iran is all talk and no action," he said. "They've taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!"
In a sign that diplomacy was continuing however, negotiators from Qatar -- which along with Pakistan has been assisting in mediation efforts -- traveled to Tehran on Wednesday "to meet with the Iranians in an effort to bridge the remaining gaps", a diplomat with knowledge of the situation said.
At a Security Council meeting on the Middle East, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres suggested that an imperfect ceasefire was preferable to a return to full-scale hostilities.
"We should not minimize the risks of a lesser fire becoming full fire, or in another word -- full war," he said.
- Wednesday’s attacks -
The war, which began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran, threw the region into chaos and rattled global markets before the shaky truce began.
Iran said it had attacked Jordan and Bahrain on Wednesday after the US carried out strikes on the country in retaliation for the downing of a helicopter.
The Apache was the second crewed aircraft that Washington has confirmed to have been shot down by Iran during the war. Its two crew members were rescued, the US military said.
Bahrain said it intercepted and destroyed "a number of Iranian aerial attacks", while Jordan's military said it shot down five missiles, with no casualties or material damage.
The Kuwaiti military also said its air defenses were engaging "hostile aerial targets". Iran has recently carried out deadly attacks there too.
US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said on X that it had earlier "struck Iranian air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz".
An American warplane also fired on and disabled a tanker in the Gulf of Oman that was attempting to transport oil from Iran in violation of a US blockade of Iranian ports, the US military said on Wednesday.
The violence sparked calls for de-escalation from Iranian allies Russia and China.
A spokesperson for China's foreign ministry called on the warring parties to "stop intensifying the conflict and escalating the situation".
- 'We've packed our things' -
Iran has insisted any deal to end the war must include a truce in Lebanon, which was drawn into the conflict when Iran-backed Hezbollah group within its borders fired rockets at Israel on March 2.
Israel responded with a campaign of airstrikes and a ground invasion that has killed more than 3,600 people. Exchanges of fire with Hezbollah have not stopped despite a nominal truce.
On Wednesday, a medical source told AFP that Israeli strikes on south Lebanon had killed 12 people.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military told the entire southern city of Tyre to evacuate, with an AFP correspondent witnessing residents fleeing and heavy traffic heading north after the warning.
An AFP correspondent in the coastal city of Sidon, further north, saw displaced people arriving from Tyre, some with belongings strapped to the roofs of their cars.
On Wednesday, a strike hit the center of Sidon, with an AFP correspondent seeing a car burning and emergency personnel heading to the scene after hearing a blast.
"We've packed our things, and we're leaving," Tyre resident Elias Barbour told AFP.
"What have we done wrong? What are we supposed to do?"
