Iran's Larijani says war won't end before enemies made sorry for 'grave miscalculation'

Tehran vows to ‘set region on fire’ if energy infrastructure and ports targeted; parliament speaker says attacks on Iran’s Gulf islands will see them ‘run with the blood of invaders’

As US President Donald Trump makes intermittent comments about the war with Iran nearing its end, Iranian officials on Thursday vowed an unrelenting campaign across the Middle East, echoing comments attributed to new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei vowing revenge against the US and Israel.

“While starting a war is easy, it cannot be won with a few tweets. We will not relent until making you sorry for this grave miscalculation,” Iranian security chief Ali Larijani said on X.

Larijani also threatened to target power grids in the region if the United States attacked the Islamic Republic’s electricity supplies.

“If they do that, the whole region will go dark in less than half an hour and darkness provides ample opportunity to hunt down US servicemen running for safety,” said Larijani.

Trump had said US forces could knock out Iran’s electricity supply “within one hour” and leave the country with reconstruction that could take a generation.

Iran also threatened to wreak havoc on the region’s oil and gas industry if its own energy infrastructure was attacked.

“We will set the region’s oil and gas on fire with the slightest attack on Iran’s energy infrastructure and ports,” said a spokesman for the Iranian military’s central operational command, known as Khatam al-Anbiya.

Fire and a plume of smoke is visible after, according to authorities, debris of an Iranian intercepted drone hit the Fujairah oil facility, in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, March 3, 2026. (Altaf Qadri/AP)

And Iran’s powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf warned Thursday that Tehran will “abandon all restraint” if the United States and Israel attack any of its islands in the Gulf.

“Any aggression against soil of Iranian islands will shatter all restraint. We will abandon all restraint and make the Persian Gulf run with the blood of invaders,” Qalibaf said in a post on X.

In this photo released by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council office, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani attends a meeting in Muscat, Oman, February 10, 2026. (Erfan Kouchari/Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Office via AP)

It was not immediately clear which islands he was referring to, but a recent Axios report cited US officials as saying that capturing Kharg was on the table as the war in the Middle East spirals.

In an interview with AFP, Iran’s deputy foreign minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi claimed that Tehran was only acting in “self-defense” and wanted to ensure that war could not be “imposed” on it again.

Takht-Ravanchi confirmed that Iran had been approached by some “friendly countries” to put an end to the conflict, without specifying which ones.

“We are telling them the same thing, that we want the ceasefire to be part of an overall formula for ending the war altogether,” he added.

Journalists stand atop a fuel tanker as they cover a nearby ongoing fire following an overnight airstrike on the Shahran oil refinery in northwestern Tehran on March 8, 2026. (AFP)

Gulf states have borne the brunt of retaliatory attacks from Iran. Images from Bahrain on Thursday showed thick smoke rising after a strike on fuel tanks in Muharraq, with residents told to stay inside and close their windows.

Drones caused damage again at Kuwait’s international airport and in downtown Dubai, while Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted drones headed towards its Shaybah oil field and its embassy district.

An oil tanker is set aflame after being struck in the Gulf on March 12, 2026. (AP)

With Gulf states slashing production and oil tankers stuck in the Gulf, benchmark oil prices have risen 40-50 percent since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, threatening to crimp growth and stoke inflation.