THE GUARDIAN: US president signals willingness to engage with Tehran’s surviving leadership as strikes and retaliatory attacks intensify across region
Donald Trump said on Sunday he was prepared to talk to what was left of the Iranian leadership in the wake of the killing of the country’s supreme leader by US-Israeli air strikes aimed at overthrowing the regime.
Trump was speaking as a second day of intense bombing of Iranian cities and Tehran’s missile counter-attacks sent tremors across the region and through the global economy.
Oil prices jumped 10% to $80 a barrel for Brent crude, amid predictions that the continuing war could soon drive it to $100, after attacks on two ships largely choked off tanker traffic through the strait of Hormuz out of the Gulf.
Amir-Saeid Iravani, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, told an emergency security council meeting on Saturday that hundreds of civilians had been killed or injured in the US-Israeli strikes. He said they had deliberately targeted civilian neighbourhoods in multiple cities.
The death toll is expected to climb after a second day of bombing. Iranian state media said that 165 people had been confirmed dead in a bomb attack on a girls’ primary school in the southern city of Minab on Saturday. » | Julian Borger in London and Jason Burke in Jerusalem | Sunday, March 1, 2026
