TRUMP WON'T RULE OUT SENDING TROOPS INTO IRAN

US signals possible troop deployment as regional conflict widens and energy markets react

- AFP

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has refused to rule out sending ground troops into Iran as he warned that the spreading Middle East war, unleashed by US-Israeli strikes, could last longer than a month.

Israel yesterday traded fire with Iran-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iranian counterattacks hit Gulf states and a British base in Cyprus. International gas prices rose and shares went down.

Trump said he would not rule out sending ground troops into Iran.

"I don't have the yips with respect to boots on the ground like every president says, 'There will be no boots on the ground.' I don't say it," he told the New York Post.

"I say 'probably don't need them, [or] 'if they were necessary," he said.

Trump later said at the White House he had taken the "last, best chance" to stop Iran's alleged nuclear bomb programme and “eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime”.

He said the US attack was meeting its goals ahead of schedule, but also warned the war could go “far longer” than his initial estimates of about a month.