Trump accused of secret plan for Iran ground invasion as thousands of US Marines arrive | BBC News

As Israel and America's war with Iran enters its fifth week, the US is now being accused by Tehran of plotting an invasion. It comes after these images of US Marines sent to the region were released by the Pentagon. Iran is warning the regime will rain fire

on American troops if they attack. Around 3,500 US Marines and soldiers have now arrived in the Persian Gulf, awaiting final orders. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Israel have continued airstrikes on Iran, including in Tehran, where the offices of a Qatari news channel were hit.

But Iran has again hit back, targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. And in Israel, a fire broke out at an industrial site to the south of Beersheba after an Iranian missile strike, with the very latest.

Here's our World News correspondent, Joe Inwood. For a military that the US claims to have destroyed, Iran still seems capable of inflicting damage. In the Negev Desert, an industrial park burns, the result of Iranian missile strikes on Israel. Today has also seen reports of dozens of drones and missiles

fired across the Gulf. It has also emerged that a valuable US spy plane called an AWAC was destroyed in a strike on an air base in Saudi Arabia. This war does not feel like it's de-escalating. There are reports in the US that the use of ground troops is being considered. Thousands

of marines are in the region. The Washington Post claims they may make an attempt to take either Karg Island or launch coastal raids. Responding on social media, the president simply said, no, Trump is not losing his nerve on Iran without expanding further. It's not known if a decision has been made, but any operation that put U.S. boots on the ground would come with incredible risks, both for the personnel involved and for the escalation

of this war.

ABDUL KHADEM, Iranian President through translator, said in a statement.

Aggression and occupation will yield no result other than the humiliating capture, dismemberment and disappearance of the aggressors. American commanders and soldiers will become food for

the sharks of the Persian Gulf.

This is now a multi-front war. In Lebanon, Israel has continued its offensive. The IDF released this footage. Their target is the armed group Hezbollah, allies of Iran. But that seems to include some journalists. Today the funerals of Ali Shoaib, Fatima Fatouni and her brother Mohammed took place. Israel accused Shoaib, who worked for a channel aligned with Hezbollah, of being an intelligence operative without providing evidence.

The Lebanese authorities say more than 1,000 civilians have now been killed, with more than a million forced from their homes. Tonight there are fears that some may not be able to return, after Israel's prime minister expanded what he calls a security zone, but others will call occupation.

I said we would change the face of the Middle East and we did it. In Lebanon I have instructed the military to expand the existing security strip in order

to finally thwart the threat of invasion and to keep missile fire away from our borders.

These are the skies over Tehran tonight. Iranian air defense is still apparently in action. Iran will know it cannot defeat the US and Israel militarily but may not need to if it can outlast them. Joe Inwood, BBC News. Over

the past month several countries have been dragged into the conflict and now the launch of missiles targeting Israel from Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels this weekend marks yet another escalation potentially costing more lives and further disrupting the global economy. Here's Mark Ashdown.

December 2023, Houthi rebels board a tanker in the Red Sea. These attacks resulted in years of disruption to global trade. Any repeat could deliver a fresh blow to economies around the world. The focus so far has been on solving Iran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz,

the key shipping pinch point. Saudi Arabia is currently diverting 4 million barrels a day through a pipeline to Yambu on the Red Sea coast. That means it can maintain the flow of oil to the Asian market by safely sailing it past Yemen. But that route too could now be under threat. From 2023, almost two years of Houthi attacks saw around 30 vessels damaged. Any repeat, as threatened, could see the narrow Bab al-Mandab Strait become another flashpoint,

affecting routes for Saudi oil. And some regions are very dependent on this supply, with shortages already emerging. In Ethiopia, drivers queue at petrol stations. That's the picture too in Kenya and South Africa. Some nations in the region have now started to ration fuel. Asia has been hard hit too.

The Philippines has moved to a four-day work week, while Myanmar has imposed alternate driving days. Some countries have also introduced a fuel price cap.

In Thailand, some people have been ordered to conserve energy by suspending travel, taking the stairs instead of elevators. In Bangladesh, they've closed universities there. Sri Lanka's had some fuel rationing.

Parts of Australia are also running short of fuel. In two states, Victoria and Tasmania, travel on public transport will now be free for a month. And in Egypt, the streets are dark. Shops, restaurants and cafes are told to close by 9pm every night to preserve energy. The government here says the UK has a strong and diverse supply of fuel

and has urged motorists not to alter their buying habits.

Production is being maintained, supplies are being maintained, so people should just carry on as usual. Of course governments will always plan for contingencies, that is always the right thing to do, but people should be reassured ahead of the Easter holidays

just to carry on as things are. 90% of all trade is shipped on the ocean. If the Red Sea does become another key trading route dragged into this conflict, there could be huge implications for the global economy. Mark Ashdown, BBC News.

Simon Jack is with me alongside Jeremy Bowen. To you, Simon, first. Sakhir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, for them, the economic ramifications of all, this just get worse.

They do, and as Mark was saying there, this additional potential choke point in the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandab, the Gates of Tears, it means in Arabic, could further add to those inflationary pressures. Now, we've already seen them showing up in petrol and diesel prices, up 15% and 26% respectively. That goes immediately into transport costs. And there's more in the post.

Things like fertilizer costs make their way into food prices. And the Red Sea on its way to the Suez Canal, also very big container shipping route for all sorts of goods. And that can begin to affect financing costs,

insurance markets, and I expect the Prime Minister to reach out to talk to business chiefs across industry later this week. Rachel Reeves will join a meeting of other G7 finance ministers, where she'll say, we need to get off our reliance on imported fossil fuels.

Her solution to that is more renewables, more nuclear. That is a different message than the opposition leader, Kemi Bainhart, will take to Scotland tomorrow when she said what we need is more drilling of our own oil and gas, which she accepts might not affect prices that much, but might give you more revenue jobs, tax revenue to make interventions where you need. As I say, final thoughts on the markets is that they're going to open very shortly. The inflationary pressures we've seen already showing up in petrol and diesel prices can only get worse because what we've seen in the last week has yet to trickle down so expect those

prices to rise. Yeah, I mean Jeremy, the war is now into its fifth week and it seems we have reached a bit of a crunch

point, a critical moment with these Marines now arriving in the Persian Gulf. It is decision time now, Clive, for Donald Trump. Let's look at the options. If he gets a deal with the Iranian regime and he seems to think in terms of what he says that he can get when he seems to believe that they are weakened in fact virtually beaten and therefore they'll make a deal signals coming from them are very different now

they seem to think they're doing actually pretty well and they've hit an AWACS they're hitting air defense radar you know they are still fighting so if he doesn't get that deal and their officials positions are way apart, so what can he do? He can declare victory, perhaps say, look, we've smashed them, we're going to go home, that's it. I don't think anyone's going to find that credible, probably including many people in America. Alternative, he can get in deeper. Those Marines have arrived.

More Marines are coming in. There are paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne on standby and other troops as well, as we were hearing. That is dangerous, these pictures have been released by CENTCOM, the American command there, and they show that these guys are ready, they're ready to fight, that's what they're trained for, but it's a big political judgment doing all of that because Iran can respond, Iran can hit them, say taking territory is one thing, keeping it is another.

And as of course, as you've been hearing, on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula, there's the Red Sea, there's Bab al-Mandab, and there are the Houthis, who have started firing missiles again at Israel, not yet at shipping,

but that could be the next step for them.

And what about the second front, the other front in this war, Lebanon?

That's an escalation it seems tonight too.

The leader who is doing best out of all of this, I think, is Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He's getting more of what he wants. He's wanted this war against Iran with America, as he said himself, for 40 years. Finally he has an American president who is prepared to do it. Netanyahu will want to continue hitting Iran. He says he wants to change the face of the Middle East. They are occupying now the

Israelis a big strip, they want to anyway, of south Lebanon, plus continuing creeping annexation in the West Bank. All right, Jeremy, thank you.

Jeremy Bowen, international editor, and Simon Jack, our business editor, many thanks. And polls suggest a majority of the American people are against the military campaign in Iran. Republicans, however, have largely stuck by Donald Trump, with around three quarters supporting the war.

But with the conflict now more than a month old, withlap backing remains strong. Gary O'Donohue has been to the deep south, to Alabama, which Donald Trump won in the 2024 election to speak to some of his supporters.

It's time to spray the peach trees in rural Alabama. The crop should be ready to pick in early June. Tim Pearce's family have been farming this land for almost 100 years, but this year he's lost almost 50% of his crop after just a few days of sub-zero temperatures two weeks ago. On top of that, diesel prices are up 50% since

the beginning of the war, and then there's the fertiliser.

The ton price, it was up $400, $500 more per ton.

$400 or $500 a ton?

Yeah.

Tim can pass on some of these extra costs, but the consumer won't pay over the odds. You'd think this might shake his support for the president,

but no.

If it's just going to cost me a little bit of fuel prices, the reward is greater than the expense.

So getting the war done?

Yeah, getting it done and not having to worry about the fact that Iran might have a nuclear missile they can send over this way.

You know, so I don't like war but sometimes it's not preventable.

Seventy miles west in Tuscaloosa, home to the University of Alabama, the college baseball team has just hit a home run against their arch rivals Auburn. Brian Banks and Ben Plattner both have sons on the team, one a pitcher, one a catcher, they follow them everywhere. Their support for the war is strong, but you can see them wrestling with concerns.

I think it's a little touch and go. I'm not disagreeing with what's going on. I think it needed to be done in the last 47 years.

The way Trump has been handling his business, I would have thought he would have already handled it. But this is a lot bigger than we know about.

Both Brian and Ben believe Iran did pose an imminent threat to the United States, reason enough, they say, for the president to go back on his promise of no more foreign wars. But some things they're split on.

How would you feel about US boys on the ground down there?

Yeah, I didn't want to see that.

What would you feel about that? As far as boots on the ground, it's whatever it takes to get that regime. Once you start it, there is no going back.

Alabama is also the heart of America's so-called Bible Belt. Strong evangelical Christian faith here is central to most people's lives. And backing for this president and his support for conservative values is solid. These Seventh-day Adventists follow the Ten Commandments closely and in particular the

sixth, Thou shalt not kill.

So what does the congregation make of this war? I think that people believe that Iran is a threat and as such they believe that as a threat it needs to be addressed proactively. But could that change? There was support for Vietnam and then it turned and people shifted. There was support for Iraq, Desert Storm, and it shifted. And so the reality is people can be quite fickle.

Like the rest of the MAGA base, Evangelicals will go a long way to keep the faith with Donald Trump, but their loyalty is not limitless. but their loyalty is not limitless. Gary O'Donohue, BBC News, Alabama.