Oil prices go haywire as Iran welcomes new supreme leader

• US president calls Mojtaba’s appointment ‘bad idea’; says war could be ‘over soon’• Kremlin says Putin gave Trump proposals for a quick settlement of conflict• Israel launches more attacks on Tehran, Isfahan; Iran pledges bigger warheads in response• Bahrain oil facilities attacked; Nato defences shoot down missiles aimed at Turkiye• Two UAE servicemen killed; strike hits near Iraqi base, Baghdad airport

TEHRAN / WASHINGTON: Monday was a rough day for global markets, which saw Brent crude oil prices jumping to a peak of $119.50 as Iran launched fresh strikes on energy installations in the Gulf, before coming back down to around $82 a barrel.

For his part, US President Donald Trump predicted the war in the Middle East could be over soon, even as Tehran saw rallies in support of the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.

Iranian state media showed large crowds in several cities rallying behind the new leader, waving Iranian flags and holding portraits of his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by an Israeli strike on the war’s first day.

But Trump told NBC News that Iran’s leaders made a “big mistake” by elevating Khamenei, but predicted the war could be over before the timeline of four to five weeks he had earlier laid out.

“We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some people. And I think you’ll see it’s going to be a short-term excursion,” Trump told a gathering of Republicans at his golf club in Doral, Florida.

“I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” he said, in separate comments to CBS News.

The conflicting signals sent markets on a rollercoaster, with oil prices surging and stock markets nosediving before swinging in the other direction after Trump’s comments and reports of a possible ease in sanctions on Russian energy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a telephone conversation on Monday with US President Donald Trump, put forward proposals for a quick settlement of the conflict around Iran, a Kremlin aide said on Monday.

Giving an account of the conversation to reporters, the aide said the two leaders also discussed the conflict in Ukraine and noted that Russian gains should prompt Kyiv’s negotiators to move towards a settlement.

He described the entire discussion as “very........

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