DUBAI, July 17: The United States expanded its airstrike campaign against Iran early Friday by hitting more bridges, energy sites and collapsing a tower at a key Iranian port, backing up US President Donald Trump’s threats to start striking infrastructure to pressure Tehran to ease its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran launched missile attacks against US-allied nations in the Middle East, including Qatar, a mediator in the war, and Kuwait, where a power and water desalination plant – vital infrastructure in the desert nation – was damaged.
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 recent 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.
As crossings through the strait hit a three-week low, according to an international shipping tracker, the price of oil rose above USD 86 a barrel, close to its highest level in a month.
Speaking in a primetime address to the American public on Thursday, Trump insisted the war was going well.
“We are likewise winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labour very, very shortly,” Trump said.
Before the war began, the US had been in talks with Iran over its nuclear programme. Trump now faces political pressure to bring the war to a close and avoid the kind of prolonged Middle East conflict he had campaigned against.
BRIDGES AND ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE HIT IN IRAN
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 Strait of Hormuz.
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.
While other routes still are open, the US strikes could expand further, potentially disrupting both the movement of military materiel and goods needed for Iran’s 90 million people.
Iran also acknowledged “attacks on power infrastructure” during the US airstrike campaign for the first time Friday when its Energy Ministry issued a call for people to use less power in southern provinces.
It said those areas “are currently experiencing extreme heat and attacks on power infrastructure.” The ministry did not elaborate on whether it was power plants, transmission lines or other equipment that had been attacked.
Such strikes on power infrastructure had been suspected for days.
TOWER AT KEY PORT HIT BY US COLLAPSES
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 Gulf of Oman, a key trade route for landlocked, neighbouring Afghanistan, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
Chabahar port, which Iran had been running with support from India, has been a repeated target of American airstrikes.
Iran described the tower as overseeing commercial traffic into the port. However, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard also operates at ports across the country.
As of 6 am Friday, the US strikes had killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 400 in Iran, Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour said.
IRAN TARGETS QATAR
On Friday, Qatar twice warned the public to take shelter as a barrage of Iranian missiles targeted the nation. People heard explosions overhead as air defences fired to intercept the missiles. Qatar’s Interior Ministry said falling debris wounded a child.
Qatar, along with Pakistan, is a key mediator in trying to reach an end to the Iran war. But talks have broken down over Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.Iran also targeted Bahrain and Kuwait early Friday. In Kuwait, authorities said Iran attacked a power and water desalination plant, causing widespread damage to the station. About 90 per cent of the country’s drinking water comes from desalination.
Kuwait said it extinguished the blaze and was working to assess the damage and get the station working again.
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 semiautonomous 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, said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.Iran did not immediately claim the attack but has targeted Komala in the past. (PTI)
