The US military launched its seventh consecutive night of strikes on Iran on Friday night, with operations beginning at 7pm GMT. The fighting over Hormuz kept moving even as Iran’s power grid strained and Kuwait temporarily suspended operations at its international airport.
Hossein Kermanpour, the spokesperson for Iran’s health ministry, said renewed US strikes had killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 400 in Iran by Friday morning. Iran’s energy ministry told citizens to reduce electricity and air conditioning use after attacks on energy facilities left the south facing extreme heat and pressure on power infrastructure.
US Central Command and Iran
US Central Command said the strikes were designed to continue degrading Iranian military capabilities. Iranian media reported explosions heard or strikes carried out in Sirik, Ahvaz and Yazd, while US airstrikes also hit bridges in Hormozgan province, brought down a tower in Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman, and targeted key electrical infrastructure and Iranshahr airport.
Those bridge strikes killed at least seven people, according to Iranian state TV, and the bridges were a key transit point for Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port. The US military said the tower in Chabahar port had been used by the IRGC to facilitate attacks on vessels in the strait of Hormuz.
The IRGC and the US
The IRGC said two oil tankers had hit mines in Hormuz and exploded, but the US military said that claim was false. The IRGC also said it targeted a site where US combat aircraft were gathered at Sheikh Isa air base, an intelligence datacentre in Bahrain known as Batelco, a US naval fuel-support pier at al-Ahmadi port, and a US signals and communications centre in Kuwait.
Kuwait temporarily suspended operations at Kuwait international airport because of Iranian missile and drone attacks. After the US strikes on Friday, the IRGC threatened a “devastating price” for countries hosting US bases if American attacks against infrastructure continued, saying: “The American enemy and the hosts of its bases in the region should know that crossing red lines and attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure will have a very severe and devastating price to pay”.
The current round of fighting had entered its seventh day by Friday, and Donald Trump reportedly met senior department heads this week to discuss an expanded aerial campaign to force Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz. With Iran’s ports and ships facing a blockade reimposed by the US on Wednesday, the immediate question is whether the strikes continue at the same pace or widen into a longer air campaign.
