US PRESIDENT Donald Trump appeared hell-bent on destroying all of Iran’s power plants and bridges as the Morning Star went to press last night, ranting that a “whole civilization will die” if Tehran failed to meet his latest deadline to accept a deal that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

With the deadline due to expire at 1am British time and no sign that, unlike previously, Mr Trump would grant an extension, Iranian official Alireza Rahimi issued a video message calling on “all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors” to form human chains around power plants.

Meanwhile, air strikes hit two bridges and a railway station in Iran and the US struck military targets on the Iranian oil hub of Kharg Island.

Mr Trump has threatened to destroy all of Iran’s power plants and bridges if Tehran does not lift its threat to target ships in the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil usually passes.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on X that 14 million of his compatriots had answered campaigns urging people to volunteer to fight — and said he would join them — while a Revolutionary Guard general urged parents to send their children to operate checkpoints.

The Revolutionary Guard warned that if Mr Trump carried out his threat, Iran would “deprive the US and its allies of the region’s oil and gas for years” and expand its attacks across the Gulf region.

At least two of the latest air strikes were connected to Iran’s rail network, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that warplanes had bombed bridges and railways.

Tehran fired on Israel and Saudi Arabia, prompting the temporary closure of a major bridge.

This morning, the US president posted: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if a deal isn’t reached, while adding that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot joined international voices calling for restraint, saying attacks targeting civilian and energy infrastructure “are barred by the rules of war, international law.”

“They would without doubt trigger a new phase of escalation, of reprisals, that would drag the region and the world economy into a vicious circle,” he said.

The Israeli military said it had attacked an Iranian petrochemical site in Shiraz, the second day in a row it hit such a facility, along with bridges in Tehran, Karaj, Tabriz, Kashan and Qom that it claimed were being used by Iranian forces to transport weapons and military equipment.