On Friday morning, the United States expanded its campaign of air strikes on Iran, targeting bridges as part of President Donald Trump’s threats to begin targeting infrastructure to pressure Tehran to ease its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
Tankers that restarted the war
Iran launched new missile attacks on US allies in the Middle East and warned that its attacks would intensify.
In Qatar, authorities warned the public to take shelter as a barrage of Iranian missiles rained down on the country. People heard explosions overhead as air defense systems tried to intercept the missiles.
Qatar is a key mediator with Pakistan in an attempt to end the war with Iran.
But the talks collapsed due to Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran earlier launched strikes on Bahrain and Kuwait following US airstrikes on bridges in the Islamic Republic overnight.
The truce in the war with Iran has been disrupted
A temporary ceasefire agreed to last month has collapsed and the region has endured days of attacks from the United States and Iran as they battle for control of the strait.
Iranian officials say the US strikes have killed more than 35 people and wounded more than 300, with more casualties reported in Friday’s strikes.
When the United States and Israel went to war with Iran on February 28, Tehran effectively closed the strait to shipping, sending oil prices soaring and giving Iran significant leverage in negotiations.
Donald Trump speaks in the East Room of the White House. (AP: Saul Loeb/Poole)
In a prime-time speech to the American public, Trump said the war was going well.
“We’ve also made great strides in Iran, and you’ll see the fruits of that labor very, very soon,” he said.
Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesman for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters, previously threatened that Iran could launch large-scale attacks on “all infrastructure in the region” if the US acts in response to Trump’s repeated warnings that America could target Iranian bridges and power plants.
“Under no circumstances and in no way will we allow America, as a foreign and extra-regional country, to interfere in the affairs of the Strait of Hormuz,” he added.
“This is Iran’s invincible red line.”
American trikes crash into bridges in Iran
US airstrikes struck bridges in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province on Friday night, killing at least seven people, Iranian state television reported.
Bandar Khamir, a city on the Iranian coast in the Strait of Hormuz, was attacked.
Iranian state media reported that the US carried out strikes on Thursday on Tehran and Semnan province, home to Iran’s space program and ballistic missile production.
In recent days, Trump has returned to his threats to target Iranian power plants and bridges to try to force Iran to loosen its grip on the strait, through which about a fifth of its oil and natural gas once passed in peacetime.
Three boys are playing in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday when a plume of smoke rises. (AP: Raziye Pudat/ISNA via AP)
The US also reimposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports to stop crude oil supplies.
Weekly cross-strait cargo movements fell by almost a quarter at the start of the month, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
And that was before the recent surge in tit-for-tat attacks.
Given the risks, some oil shippers are passing through the strait with their location devices turned off, but many are simply staying put, Lloyd’s said on Thursday.
An increasing amount of the region’s energy is transported through pipelines, but this is not enough to compensate for the decline in supplies across the strait.
U.S. forces diverted three commercial vessels attempting to break the blockade, disabled one that did not comply and boarded another “to ensure full compliance,” U.S. Central Command said in a message on X.
AP