Intl desk: The US is carrying out major strikes on Iran for the sixth night in a row. Officials in southern Iran’s Bandar Abbas report that civilian infrastructure, including power facilities and a train station, has been hit.
Iran’s army says it has targeted US aircraft at a military base in Bahrain, while Kuwait’s army says it is responding to missile and drone attacks. Qatar authorities say a child was injured by falling missile debris after its army thwarted incoming Iranian attacks.
A spokesman for Iran’s military says the Strait of Hormuz will never return to its pre-war status, as US Central Command says soldiers boarded a vessel in the Gulf of Oman to enforce its blockade of Iran.
The latest fighting between the US and Iran suggests that the “appetite for diplomacy” has been lost, Trita Parsi from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft says.
“We are quickly going towards nightmare scenarios that were earlier avoided,” Parsi wrote in a post on X.
“Even if de-escalation can’t be achieved in the short run, AVOIDING FURTHER escalation can,” Parsi added. “And it must.”
The US launched a new wave of strikes against Iran for a sixth night in a row, its military said, as the two sides battled for control of the Strait of Hormuz.
US Central Command (Centcom) said the attacks were intended to “further degrade Iranian military capabilities”, before saying it had boarded a vessel as part of its blockade of the strait.
In an apparent escalation, Iran’s state media reported that the US had struck civilian infrastructure, including bridges, a train station and an airport. The BBC has verified an attack on one bridge to the west of Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan province.
The BBC has contacted the White House and Centcom for comment.
US missiles also struck close to the island of Qeshm, near the strait, as well as in Bandar Abbas and Bushehr – the site of a nuclear power plant.
Centcom did not mention bridges in its list of the “dozens of Iranian military targets” it hit in the latest round of strikes, which ended in the early hours of Friday.
It said jets, drones and ships had attacked “coastal surveillance and air defense sites, military logistics infrastructure, and maritime capabilities”.
Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump threatened to strike Iran’s bridges and power plants if the country did not return to talks.
Source: News Agencies
