Iran FM says US plan for rapid military victory failed

President Donald Trump said the United States would accept assistance from any country to defend against Iranian.

“Certainly I'll take, you know, any assistance from any country,” Trump said in a telephone interview with Reuters when asked about the offer.

Earlier, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv had received a specific request from the United States for help dealing with drones in the Middle East.

"We want to be involved in the process of choosing the person who is going to lead Iran into the future," Reuters quoted Trump as saying.

"We don't have to go back every five years and do this again and again ... Somebody that's going to be great for the people, great for the country," he added.

Trump said it was very early in the process of picking a new leader but that Ali Khamenei's son Mojtaba was an unlikely choice, according to the report.

Asked about reports of US support for Kurdish forces launching an offensive into Iran,Trump said: “I think it’s wonderful if they want to do that.”

Donald Trump acknowledged that Mojtaba Khamenei, son of slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei, is the most likely successor but made it clear he finds that outcome unacceptable and that he needs to be personally involved in selecting Iran's next leader, Axios reported citing an interview with the US president.

Trump added that he refuses to accept a new Iranian leader who would continue Khamenei's policies, which he said would force the US back to war "in five years."

"Khamenei's son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran," Axios quoted Trump as saying.

Iraqi pro-Iran militias threatened to target the interests of European countries that join US-Israeli strikes on Iran after a senior Kataeb Hezbollah officer was killed in an airstrike south of Baghdad.

Ali Hassan al-Furayji, a senior deputy in Kataeb Hezbollah, was killed along with two other operatives in the overnight strike, the group’s leader Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi said.

In a statement issued by the umbrella group Islamic Resistance in Iraq, the militias warned that any European country joining the “Zionist-American” campaign against Iran would see its forces and interests in Iraq and across the region become “legitimate targets.”

“The criminal Zionist-American enemy continues rallying its allies against the free people of the Islamic Republic and the region, begging some of the European countries to join,” the statement said.

“Any of those countries that do join in this battle… their forces and interests in Iraq and the region will be subject to legitimate targeting,” it added.

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned that any US ground incursion into Iran would result in heavy casualties, saying Iranian forces were ready to confront American troops.

“Some US officials have said they intend to enter Iran with several thousand troops in a ground operation,” Larijani wrote on X.

“The brave sons of Imam Khomeini and Imam Khamenei are waiting for you to disgrace those wicked American officials with thousands of killed and captured,” he added.

“The land of Iran is not a place for the dance of the damned,” Larijani said in the message addressed to US officials.