Hours after Iran’s newly appointed supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei credited his countrymen for ensuring “the enemy’s defeat”, US President Donald Trump said the US was getting close to meeting its “objectives” and was considering “winding down” military efforts.Trump in the post on social media said, “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great military efforts.”He listed five points of his objectives against Iran — US had completely degraded Iranian missile capability, launchers, and everything else pertaining to them, Iran’s defence industrial base has bene destroyed; their Navy and Air Force, including anti-aircraft weaponry and been finished; we will never allow Iran to get even close to nuclear capability; protected our allies, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and others.On the vital Strait of Hormuz, Trump said, “It will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other nations who use it — The US does not! If asked, we will help these countries in their Hormuz efforts.”India, China, Japan, Pakistan and South Korea are among the major users of Hormuz and in the past few days, almost all of them are in direct contact with Iran.Earlier, Iranian leader Mojtaba Khamenei credited internal unity during the ongoing confrontation with the US and Israel. In a written message on the Iranian new year ‘Nowruz’, he said “due to the particular unity that has been created between you our compatriots — despite all the differences in religious, intellectual, cultural and political origins — the enemy has been defeated.”He also described the outcome of the conflict in sharper terms, saying Iranians had “dealt him (the enemy) a dizzying blow so that he now starts uttering contradictory words and nonsense.”The statement comes at a time when Khamenei has yet to appear publicly since taking over leadership following the killing of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an Israeli strike on February 28. His absence has fuelled speculation about his condition, with officials in Washington and Tel Aviv hinting he could have been injured.Separately, Khamenei denied accusations that Iran or its regional allies were responsible for attacks on Oman and Turkey, attributing the incidents instead to “deception by the Zionist enemy” referring to Israel.Later on Saturday evening, the US Department of War said “thousands” of targets hit during Operation Epic Fury. The US Central Command shared visuals from attacks on Iranian assets in a series of posts on X.The US Department of War shared an update on the developments in the past week, saying that thousands of Iranian targets were hit in Operation Epic Fury.The US Central Command forces have damaged or sunk more than 120 Iranian naval vessels, including all 11 of their submarines.