The United States intensified its strikes targeting Iran early Thursday, hitting targets further north and into the Tehran area, as the Islamic Republic expanded its attacks on US allies in the region and vowed to “resist until the end.”
Days of back-and-forth strikes by the US and Iran across the Middle East — and renewed threats to the Strait of Hormuz — have shredded the interim deal to end the Iran war and could tip the region back into all-out war. Iranian officials say US strikes have killed more than 35 people and wounded over 300.
US strikes reached into areas around Iran’s capital, Tehran, for the first time in the latest round of violence, showing a widening set of targets for the Americans.
Iranian state media also reported American attacks in the northern Semnan province, home to Iran’s ballistic missile production and space program.
Other strikes were reported in the provinces of Hamedan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Markazi, and Sistan and Baluchistan.
“US forces struck Iranian command centers, air defense sites, missile and drone capabilities, and coastal surveillance facilities,” the US military said in a statement, adding it also hit targets in Bandar Abbas, home to Iran’s largest port and to key navy and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities on the Strait of Hormuz.
In the Persian Gulf, the US military began to enforce Trump’s newly reinstated naval blockade of Iranian ports, and said it opened fire on the Curacao-flagged oil tanker Belma sailing toward Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal. After the ship “ignored multiple warnings,” a US aircraft disabled the merchant vessel by firing a missile into the ship’s smokestack.
Another American strike Wednesday targeted a barracks for Iran’s 388th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, which operates tanks and armored vehicles, in Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iranian state television reported. The report said Americans fired at least 13 missiles in the attack and the seven dead included conscripts and career soldiers. A number of troops were wounded.
Iran retaliated with missile and drone fire targeting Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait before dawn and the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters warned its attacks may escalate.
“All the infrastructure in the region will be crushed under the steel blows of the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran” should US President Donald Trump’s threat to target Iranian infrastructure be carried out, said Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia. Trump on Tuesday threatened to hit Iranian power plants and bridges next week unless Tehran resumes negotiations.
“Under no circumstances and in no way will we allow America, as a foreign and extra-regional country, to interfere in the Strait of Hormuz,” the Iranian military spokesman added. “This is Iran’s invincible red line.”
“The Americans thought that by attacking some of our bases on the southern coasts of the country, they could take control of this strategic strait,” Akraminia said.
“However, the Islamic Republic of Iran has the ability to exert control over the Strait of Hormuz from every single point of its territory, and this matter is never dependent on coasts and islands,” he said.
Turning toward its Arab neighbors, Iran threatened to continue its attacks on their soil as long as they allow US forces to be stationed there.
“Our neighbors should know that providing a base to the Americans and allowing them to fire on Iranian soil is unacceptable and will not go unanswered,” Iran‘s army said in a statement, just as it announced several more attacks on Gulf countries.
There was no immediate acknowledgment of damage or casualties from the attacks.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi condemned an overnight drone attack on the city of Erbil in Iraq’s semiautonomous northern Kurdish region. The drone, which authorities said had been intercepted, came during his trip to the US in which he said Iraq would work to disarm non-state armed groups, including those backed by Iran.
