US launches fresh attacks on Iran by hitting bridges, energy sites as battle over Hormuz intensifies | World

In a significant development, the United States and Iran escalated their attacks across the Middle East, trading strikes aimed at infrastructure and military targets as their battle over the Strait of Hormuz intensified. The US expanded its attacks against Iran by hitting more bridges and energy sites and collapsing a tower at a key Iranian port, following through on President Donald Trump’s threats to pressure Tehran to ease its chokehold on the waterway vital to world energy supplies.

Iran launches missile attacks on Qatar and Kuwait

In its retaliatory response, Iran launched missiles into US-allied nations in the Mideast, including Qatar, a mediator in the war, and Kuwait, where one of the desert nation’s water desalination plants was damaged.

The region has endured days of back-and-forth attacks in a conflict increasingly focused on control of the strait, and the collapse of an interim ceasefire leaves no clear end in sight for the war that began more than four months ago. The US Central Command said late Friday it had launched its seventh straight night of attacks aimed at degrading Iran’s military.

Recent US strikes killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds

Iranian officials added that recent US strikes have killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds, with new casualties reported Friday, when the US military also acknowledged more injured service members.

Iran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic after the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28. That sent the price of oil soaring and gave Iran significant leverage in negotiations. The price of oil rose Friday above USD 86 a barrel, close to its highest level in a month, as crossings through the strait fell to a three-week low, according to an international shipping tracker.

In an address to the American public on Thursday evening, Trump insisted the war was going well. “We are likewise winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly,” he said.

Bridges and ‘electrical infrastructure’ hit in Iran

The US airstrikes hit bridges overnight into Friday in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, 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.

Iran 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 “experiencing extreme heat.” The ministry did not specify what was hit.

Tower at key Iranian port collapses in US strike

Central Command said it hit dozens of military and military infrastructure targets in Friday’s airstrikes. The strikes 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 and the US military later confirmed.

Chabahar port, which Iran had been running with support from India, has been a repeated target of American airstrikes. Iran said the tower oversees commercial traffic into the port. But Central Command said it was part of a maritime surveillance network used by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard to “track and target” commercial vessels in the strait.

With inputs from AP

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