‘No oil, gas, or fertiliser to pass through strait without IRGC nod’
Dubai: The United States launched airstrikes in Iran on Sunday as Iranian missiles fired toward Jordan risked widening the conflict into neighbouring Israel.
The US military said the latest round of strikes targeted Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard to retaliate for the killing of American troops in Jordan.
The exchange of fire has further reignited the conflict between the United States and Iran, after the collapse of last month’s interim deal that sought to end the war.
The ongoing campaign, now in its second week, began with a struggle over control of the Strait of Hormuz. The US has targeted bridges, electrical facilities and other targets in Iran, and Tehran has retaliated by hitting US-allied countries throughout the Middle East.
Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain again activated air defences on Sunday morning as they warned of incoming Iranian drones and missiles. Israel warned Iran missiles launched toward neighbouring Jordan could cause fire to spill over into its territory for the first time since fighting restarted.
The US military’s Central Command in its statement also said it hit “Iranian military coastal surveillance and air defence facilities, maritime capabilities and missile and drone storage sites.” It said the attack was designed to degrade Iran’s ability to control the Strait of Hormuz and “swiftly punish Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces,” a key power base in Iran’s theocracy that controls its ballistic missile arsenal.
Footage released by the US military appeared to show strikes carried out by fighter jets and by Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from the sea. One target site appeared to be in a valley of a mountainous region. The Guard often has missile bases and other military equipment tucked into mountain ranges.
An Iranian attack on a base in Jordan killed two American service members, left one missing and four requiring hospitalisation, the US military said on Saturday. Since the war began, 16 US service members have been killed and over 430 wounded.
Iranian authorities said on Sunday that at least 50 people have been killed and 517 wounded in the latest US strikes.
Iran has provided no overall information on its materiel losses in the American campaign, which is now in its eighth day as the nations vie over control of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded passes in peacetime.
Iran’s atomic energy agency said that US strikes early on Sunday morning targeted a construction site of a planned nuclear power plant in southwest Iran, according to Iranian state television.
Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC of the planned site of the Darkhovin Nuclear Power Plant show earth clearing but very little construction having taken place there as of July 9. There is no radiological material known to be at the site, which Iran had not previously announced as targeted throughout the war.
Trump has threatened to target Iran’s power stations and bridges to try to compel Tehran to loosen its hold on the Strait of Hormuz. Recent attacks suggest the US military is carrying out that plan, beginning first with coastal areas of Iran on the strait.
The US in the past week also reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports to halt its shipments of crude oil, and the military on Saturday said it had redirected five ships and disabled one since then.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, in a statement Saturday, warned of “unforgettable lessons” if the US keeps attacking the Islamic Republic. An Iranian negotiator said Tehran was suspending its commitments to the interim deal signed about a month ago and aimed at permanently ending the fighting.
Iran’s joint military command said that US “covetousness, bullying, totalitarianism or brutality” would meet with a “devastating response.”
