Iran War Live Updates: U.S. Has Bombed Thousands of Targets in Iran, but War Aims Are Still Unclear

On Friday, the U.S. Treasury Department relaxed sanctions on Iranian oil, allowing some supplies currently at sea to be sold, an unusual move that showed how the administration had been forced by necessity to turn to a measure that could benefit its adversary.

Also on Friday, Iran targeted a joint British-American base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, more than 2,000 miles from Iranian territory, Britain’s defense ministry said. The attempted strike was unsuccessful, it said. The ministry did not say what kinds of weapons Iran used to attack the base.

One of the major issues yet to be dealt with is Iran’s nuclear program, as well as the stockpiles of enriched uranium in its possession. On Saturday, Iranian state media reported an airstrike on the Natanz facility — a major part of Iran’s nuclear program which was already bombarded by U.S. warplanes during the Israel-Iran war in June. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the report.

The Israeli military denied attacking Natanz, and the U.S. military declined to comment. Experts and analysts say it is likely to be impossible to destroy the Iranian nuclear project from the air, leaving President Trump weighing whether to send in ground forces for a dangerous mission to seize the uranium from inside Iran.

President Trump has issued conflicting pronouncements about the next steps in the operation. Israel and the United States attacked Iran in late February, killing the country’s longtime leader and igniting a war that has now spread to much of the Middle East and beyond.

Mr. Trump initially told reporters on Friday that he was not considering a cease-fire with Iran at the moment. Later that day, he said on social media that he was considering “winding down our great Military efforts” in the Middle East. And Mr. Trump did not mention his earlier stated goal — ending the decades-long rule of the Islamic Republic — at all.

Israeli officials have continued to tell their public to expect a protracted campaign against Iran. On Saturday, Israel Katz, the country’s defense minister, vowed that U.S.-Israeli joint attacks on Iran would “escalate significantly” in the coming week.

Here’s what else to follow today:

• Lebanon: Israeli forces bombarded the southern suburbs of Beirut, the capital, before dawn on Saturday, part of a wide-scale campaign against the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah. Israel has rebuffed offers by the Lebanese government to hold direct talks on a cease-fire and disarm Hezbollah, which ignited the current escalation by firing rockets at Israel earlier this month.

• Iran: Iranians had little to celebrate on the second day of Nowruz, the Iranian new year’s holiday, on Saturday, after a year of deepening economic misery, a brutal massacre carried out by government forces and, in the last month, the U.S.-Israeli bombardment. The country is in a protracted government imposed internet blackout.

• Death tolls: Iran’s U.N. ambassador said last week that at least 1,348 civilians had been killed since the start of the war. On Thursday, a Washington-based human rights group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, reported that at least 1,394 civilians had been killed. The number of Lebanese killed rose to more than 1,000, Lebanon’s health ministry said on Thursday. At least 14 people have been killed in Iranian attacks on Israel, officials have said. The American death toll stood at 13.