Iran president says conflict in Mideast amounts to 'ecocide'

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday urged countries to condemn what he called "ecocide" in the Middle East caused by "wars of aggression".

Pezeshkian said the conflicts in Gaza and the wider Middle East had inflicted a significant toll on nature that extended beyond borders and required "international solutions".

"What has occurred in our region as a result of wars of aggression is ecocide, or environmental genocide, and it must be condemned," Pezeshkian told a nature summit in Armenia attended by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Trump rules out use of nuclear weapons against Iran

US President Donald Trump ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iran, saying Washington did not need them and emphasising that the "mother of all bombs" was non-nuclear.

Asked during an interview on Thursday with Newsmax about reports that his administration was considering using the bomb against Iran, potentially after the US midterm elections, Trump stressed that it was a conventional weapon.

"The mother of all bombs is not nuclear," Trump said, adding: "This is just an extremely large bomb."

He reiterated that the weapon was not nuclear.

"The mother of all bombs is one big bomb, but it's not nuclear," he said.

Trump ruled out using nuclear weapons, saying the US did not need to resort to them.

"No, I wouldn't use nuclear. We don't have to," he said.

Read: Pakistan, Iran to discuss regional peace efforts at OIC moot: IRNA

Trump also raised the possibility of further strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, including a suspected underground site known as Pickaxe Mountain.

"Now, we're looking at Pickaxe Mountain. We may have to go there," he said.

"We'll take a shot at that one. We'll knock it out fast."

Asked whether such an operation would involve American ground troops, Trump replied: "No, I don't see that. I don't see that."

He said withdrawing before ensuring Iran could not obtain nuclear weapons might require further US military action within a year.

"We want to make it so that they will never have a nuclear weapon," he said.

‘Iran war will be over very soon’

Trump also predicted that the war would end soon, saying Tehran was negotiating with Washington.

"The Iran war will be over very soon. It's going to end very soon," he said.

Read more: Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of encouraging Houthis as attacks intensify

"One way or the other, it'll end very soon. And oil will go dropping like a rock — and gas prices as well."

Trump claimed Iranian officials had requested a halt to American and Israeli military operations.

"They've asked us to please stop. And we do, because we're negotiating with them," he said.

Asked whether he trusted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump responded: "I don't trust anybody, honestly."

"I don't trust anybody," he said. "In the world of politics, I don't trust anybody."

Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until Iran’s rights are respected: army chief

Chief Commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army Major General Amir Hatami highlighted Iran's enemy's miscalculations in the recent war, saying that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until the rights of the Iranian people were respected, according to IRNA on Friday.

Strait of Hormuz to remain closed until Iran’s rights are respected: Army chiefhttps://t.co/ZpqDYZfEu5 pic.twitter.com/qu0jiSeixi

— IRNA News Agency ☫ (@IrnaEnglish) October 16, 2026

Speaking in a ceremony at Imam Ali Officers’ University in Tehran on Thursday, Major General Hatami said that the enemy’s miscalculation was the reason for the outbreak of the war, noting that it had assumed Iran was in a weak position and underestimated the capabilities of the country’s Armed Forces.

He added that the Iranian Army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responded with full force, launching many strikes against the enemy from the earliest hours of the imposed war.

Ousted US general warned before Iran war of missile defence shortages lasting until 2030: Report

Ousted US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George warned months before the US-Israeli war against Iran that American missile defence stockpiles were critically low and could take until 2030 to recover, CBS News reported on Thursday.

George raised the warning in late December, two months before the conflict began, according to US officials familiar with his assessment. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth removed him from his post in April as the war was underway.

The general’s assessment, included in the Pentagon’s fiscal 2027 force allocation planning, identified shortages of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) interceptors and Patriot missiles, with supplies expected to remain at strategically low levels until 2030.

The officials reportedly attributed the shortfall to weapons transfers to Ukraine, US military support for Israel, and limited defence industry production capacity.

The war with Iran has further strained supplies, according to the report. A Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimate found that US forces entered 2026 with approximately 2,300 Patriot interceptors and used between 1,050 and 1,430 during the conflict.

The country’s prewar THAAD inventory stood at around 355 interceptors, of which an estimated 190 to 290 were expended.

Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior adviser at CSIS, told CBS News that these systems would be crucial in a potential conflict with China.

“Air defence — missile defence — that will be huge,” he said, explaining that a major confrontation with Beijing would demand substantial interceptor supplies.

Replenishing the stockpiles remains a lengthy process, the report said. The CSIS estimates that new THAAD interceptor contracts take over four years to fulfil, while Patriot PAC-3 orders take an average of 3 1/2 years.

The Pentagon rejected claims of a shortage. Chief spokesman Sean Parnell told CBS News: “Claims of US munitions shortages are false.”

He added that Washington retains “everything required to strike at the time and place of the President’s choosing.”