AP
Dubai
The United States expanded its airstrike campaign against Iran early 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, killing at least seven people, Iranian state television reported.
The US airstrikes hit bridges overnight into Friday in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province. The attacks hit Bandar Khamir, a city on Iran’s coast on the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran launched new missile attacks against US-allied nations in the Middle East, including Qatar, a key mediator in the war. It also damaged a power and water desalination plant in Kuwait – something crucial in the small, desert nation.
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.
Speaking in a primetime address to the American public, 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.
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. Tehran city councilman Mehdi Chamran told journalists asking about electrical problems on Tuesday, “Just look at how many power facilities they hit … and you wouldn’t be asking that question.”
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. 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. 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.
