The United States expanded its airstrike campaign against Iran early on Friday by hitting more bridges, electrical equipment and collapsing a tower at a key Iranian port, part of US President Donald Trump’s threats to start striking infrastructure to pressure Tehran to ease its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
The US airstrikes hit bridges overnight into Friday in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, killing at least seven people, Iranian state television reported. The attacks hit Bandar Khamir, a city on Iran’s coast on the .
The highway and railway bridge strikes appeared aimed at cutting off Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port, from roads leading into the Islamic Republic’s central region onward to Tehran, the capital. Videos doing the rounds on social media show bridges, including in Bandar Khamir, blown apart.
The US military’s Central Command said it hit dozens of targets in its latest airstrikes, which concluded at dawn Friday, the sixth night in a row of American attacks.
The strikes also collapsed a tower at Iran’s Chabahar port on the , a key trade route for landlocked, neighbouring Afghanistan, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Chabahar port has been a repeated target of American airstrikes. Iranian state media acknowledged a third round of strikes on the facility without immediately acknowledging the tower’s collapse.
Iran described the tower as overseeing commercial traffic into the port.
Iran’s retaliation
Iran launched new missile attacks against US-allied nations in West Asia, including , a key mediator in the war. It also damaged a power and water desalination plant in Kuwait – something crucial in the small, desert nation.
Authorities in said Iran attacked a power and water desalination plant, causing widespread damage to the station. About 90 per cent of drinking water comes from desalination, and any disruption can threaten life.
Kuwait said it had extinguished the blaze and was working to assess the damage and restore the station. Jordan’s military said it intercepted three incoming missiles Friday morning, launched by Iran.
Explosions also could be heard Friday morning in Irbil and Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region as air defences targeted incoming fire. The attack apparently targeted the Iranian Kurdish dissident group Komala, killing at least nine people and wounding others, an official told news agency AP.
The interim ceasefire agreed to last month has collapsed, and the region has endured days of back-and-forth attacks by the US and Iran as they battle for control of the strait. Iranian officials say US strikes have killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds of others, with new casualties reported in Friday’s strikes.
When the US and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28, Tehran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic, a move that sent the price of oil soaring and gave Iran major leverage in negotiations.
