Trump calls Strait of Hormuz 'something that we don't need'

Trump told reporters that he is talking to countries about policing the Strait.

ByKevin Shalvey, Meredith Deliso, Jon Haworth, and Nadine El-Bawab
Last Updated: March 15, 2026, 9:09 PM EDT

President Donald Trump announced "major combat operations" against Iran on Feb. 28, with massive joint U.S.-Israel strikes attack targeting military and government sites, officials said.

Iranian state television confirmed that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was among those killed in Tehran on the first day of strikes. His son Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen on Sunday to succeed him.

Iran is responding to the operation with missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, regional U.S. bases and multiple Gulf nations. Israel is also intensifying its long-running strike campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

(Read previous Iran live updates here.)

Watch special coverage on Nightline, "War with Iran," each night on ABC and streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.

Key Headlines

Here's how the news is developing.
Mar 10, 2026, 8:19 AM EDT

Iran campaign not 'endless nation building,' Hegseth says

The U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran are not part of an "endless nation-building" effort, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday.

"This is not 2003. This is not endless nation building under those types of quagmires we saw under Bush or Obama," Hegseth said during a Pentagon press briefing. "It's not even close. Our generation of soldier will not let that happen again."

A man walks next to a poster of Iran's late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 10, 2026.
Majid Asgaripour/West Asia News Agency via Reuters

Hegseth added that President Donald Trump would not allow such open-ended conflict, saying he "very clearly ran against those kinds of never-ending nebulously scoped missions. Those days are dead."

Mar 10, 2026, 8:10 AM EDT

Tuesday to mark 'most intense' US strikes in Iran, Hegseth says

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that U.S. strikes on Tehran would continue to amplify, meaning Tuesday’s aerial strikes would mark "the most intense" of the 10-day conflict.

Rescuers work in the rubble of residential buildings after air strikes, in the Resalat neighborhood, in Tehran, Iran, in this screengrab obtained from a handout video released March 9, 2026.
Iranian Red Crescent Society via Reuters

"Iran stands alone and they are badly losing on day 10 of Operation Epic Fury," Hegseth said. "We are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives, which are the same as the day I gave my first briefing here on Operation Epic Fury."

Mar 10, 2026, 7:50 AM EDT

Iran's top security official responds to Trump: 'Beware lest you be the ones to vanish'

Ali Larijani, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Tuesday in a post on social media that Iranians don’t fear "hollow threats," a response to an earlier social media post from U.S. President Donald Trump.

PHOTO: A man rides a motorcycle past a banner displayed at Valiasr Square in central Tehran on March 10, 2026.
A man rides a motorcycle past a banner displayed at Valiasr Square in central Tehran on March 10, 2026, depicting Iran's late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (L) watching as his successor the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (C) hands over a national flag to his son and new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
AFP via Getty Images

"The Ashura-loving Iranian people do not fear your hollow threats; for those greater than you have failed to erase it… So beware lest you be the ones to vanish," Larijani said.

Trump had earlier said the U.S. would amplify its strikes on Iran if the country moved to further restrict traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

-ABC News’ Morgan Winsor

Mar 10, 2026, 7:16 AM EDT

Iran's internet shutdown among 'most severe' ever recorded, NetBlocks says

Iran's near-total internet shutdown passed 240 hours on Tuesday, NetBlocks said in a social media post Tuesday morning

The shutdown "is now among the most severe government-imposed nationwide internet shutdowns on record globally, and the second longest registered in Iran after the January protests, with the country having spent a third of 2026 offline," the online monitoring and advocacy group said.

-ABC News’ Morgan Winsor

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