A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The war in the Middle East is now in its fourth week.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This morning, President Trump says he's instructing the U.S. military to hold off on striking Iranian power plants for five days. He made the announcement on his Truth Social site just hours before a deadline he had initially set for later today. He said both sides were in talks that could lead to, quote, "a complete and total resolution of the war."
MARTÍNEZ: With us is NPR's Emily Feng, who is at the Turkish border with Iran.
Emily, the Straight of Hormuz has really become a really critical part of the war with Iran. Tell us exactly what Iran is threatening to do.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Good morning, A. So Iran is letting through a handful of ships still that belong to countries it perceives as neutral. But then this weekend, a spokesperson for Iran's military operational command center said if the U.S. went ahead and destroyed Iran's power plants, the strait would totally close until Iran could rebuild those plants. Iran has also threatened to destroy more infrastructure that it sees as supporting U.S. and Israeli interests in the Middle East. That could include water desalination plants which Gulf countries are very reliant on. And about a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas supply passes through the strait normally. And so energy prices are way up. Countries in Asia are already rationing jet fuel, and Egypt said it would implement a curfew starting next week to cut down on their energy use.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, I know Iran also fired missiles over the weekend, including on Israel and an attempt to hit a joint U.S.-U.K. military base in the Indian Ocean. What do we know about those attacks?
FENG: Right. So Iran's been firing waves of retaliatory drones and missiles towards its neighbors, including that missile launch you mentioned, which missed the Diego Garcia military base, but it was alarming because it showed Iran's missiles can travel farther than experts had expected. Another one of Iran's strikes hit southern Israel Saturday night near the country's nuclear research facility. That injured more than 200 people. And Israel said earlier today that it was launching more retaliatory attacks on Iran. Then in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the UAE said they intercepted Iranian missiles and drones over the weekend. And in what appears to be a first, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps says they fired missiles with cluster warheads - that's their words - towards Arab countries and even showed a video of it. So the effects of this conflict are all over the region, including here where I am on the border with Iran, where you might be able to hear them. There are dozens of Iranians every hour crossing over, leaving their country while it's at war. But interestingly, some are going back in to see their families, despite knowing that the U.S. might bomb power plants soon.
MARTÍNEZ: What are the Iranians that you're seeing and meeting saying about the war?
FENG: So three people just now told us they're leaving Iran because they heard the U.S. might bomb plants, but one person also added, they said, I hope the U.S. hits their targets and bombs Iran, which might be hard for people to understand. A lot of people in Tehran said they've heard heavy bombing over the last few weeks in the city. One man said his family lived about 500 yards from one of Iran's largest hospitals and describes the fear of seeing a strike hit the hospital and destroy it in early March and watching the survivors escape. And then a second man told us on record he left Iran just a few days ago, and he told us this about the Ramadan holidays last week.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: So he says in Tehran, Iran's powerful security forces started giving out free food right next to these new checkpoints they've set up, and he believes they are deliberately trying to put civilians in harm's way because these are checkpoints that Israel has been heavily bombing. What's really scary for people is not just the U.S. and Israeli strikes but also the government imposed internet blackout in Iran. People say they cannot receive warnings about where the next strikes will be, and in that complete absence of information is absolute fear.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPRs Emily Feng in Turkey's Van Province, just a few yards away from the border with Iran.
Emily, thank you for your reporting.
FENG: Thanks, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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