Washington DC [US], March 7 (ANI): US President Donald Trump on Saturday (local time) claimed that the US has knocked out 42 navy ships of Iran.

Trump, while delivering remarks to the Shield of Americas Summit, said that the US has destroyed their modes of communication there.

Trump said, 'We're doing very well in Iran. We've knocked out 42 Navy ships, some of them very large, in three days. That was the end of the Navy. We knocked out their Air Force. We knocked out their communications, and all telecommunications is gone. I don't know how they communicate, but I guess they will figure something out. It's not working out too well. And they're bad people...This had to be done. They were very close to a nuclear weapon. They would have had one if we didn't do our B2 hit, Midnight Hammer. They would have had it eight months ago...So we did the world a favour.'

He recounted Operation Absolute Resolve, wherein the US abducted former Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro.

Trump said, 'In January, America's armed forces ended the reign of one of the biggest cartel kingpins of all, with the Operation Absolute Resolve to bring outlaw Dictator Nicolas Maduro to justice in a precision raid that nobody's ever seen anything like before... It was nasty. It was about 18 minutes of pure violence... Since that operation, we've been working closely with the new President of Venezuela, who's doing a great job working with us... If she weren't working with us, I would not say she's doing a great job. In fact, if she weren't working with us, I'd say she's doing a very poor job. Unacceptable... And we're taking out tremendous amounts of oil. They're making more money now than they've ever made,' he said.

He also noted that they have now legally recognized the government led by the acting President Delcy Rodriguez.

'This week, we have formally recognised the Venezuelan government. We've actually legally recognised them. We have also just reached a historic gold deal. It's called the Gold Deal with Venezuela to allow our two countries to work together to facilitate the sale of Venezuelan gold and other minerals... We're also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba... And they want to negotiate. They are negotiating with Marco and myself and some others. I think a deal would be made very easily with Cuba... But our focus right now is on Iran,' he said.

Parallely, Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York said that Tehran has been targeting only military bases and US assets during its recent attacks. In regard to strikes on non-military sites, the mission said in a social media post that a preliminary assessment suggested that 'some of these incidents may have resulted from interception by US electronic defence systems, which may have diverted the projectiles from their intended military targets,' Al Jazeera reported. (ANI)