The US launched strikes on Iran for the 11th consecutive night late on Tuesday, as Tehran warned the US against targeting its nuclear facilities.
US Central Command (Centcom) said the wave of strikes were “designed to continue degrading Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping” in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian state media reported that air defences were activated in the capital Tehran. Explosions were also reported in the north-western city of Tabriz, the south-eastern ports of Chabahar and Konarak, and in the southern city of Bushehr, home to Iran’s only nuclear power plant.
Iran, which has retaliated against the US and its Middle East allies, warned of reprisals after Donald Trump said the US would soon hit an underground nuclear site near Natanz.
Iran and the US agreed a ceasefire in April, but hostilities resumed last week as both countries battled over control of the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway.
Centcom said US forces had targeted Iranian military operations centres, maritime capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage facilities, and military logistics infrastructure.
It also accused Iran of attacking “more than 30 commercial vessels” passing through the Strait of Hormuz over the past three months.
“The unwarranted attacks have endangered hundreds of innocent mariners and undermined freedom of navigation,” it said, adding the waterway remained “open for commercial vessel transit”.
Kuwait’s army said early on Wednesday morning that its air defences were engaging with drone attacks from Iran, while Bahrain and Jordan said they had also intercepted drone and missile strikes.
The price of oil has jumped in response to the latest escalation, reaching $94 on Wednesday.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Washington is still willing to engage in diplomacy with Tehran, but added that he did not believe Iran was serious about talks.
Earlier the US president said the next military target could be a complex known as Pickaxe Mountain, an underground nuclear site where Iran is suspected of building an undeclared enrichment facility.
“We’ll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily,” Trump said, addressing reporters during a White House meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.
He added that he would not normally announce targets but “there’s not a thing they can do about it”.
Iran’s Khatam Al-Anbiya military command said it would consider such an attack “as an expansion of war in the region”, threatening strikes on “all the interests of America, the allies and supporters”, state-run broadcaster IRIB reported.
Trump also threatened to “take care of” the Houthi rebels if the Iran-backed militant group in Yemen followed through on its threatened blockade of Saudi ports.
A Houthi media official had earlier said they were closing the Bab al-Mandab Strait – the Red Sea’s southern gateway – to Saudi vessels.
The Red Sea has become crucial for oil shipments from Saudi Arabia during the US-Israeli war with Iran, which has led to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Following the Houthi announcement, two tankers which had just loaded Saudi crude bound for China and India at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu made U-turns on Tuesday, heading instead towards the Suez Canal, British maritime risk management group Vanguard said.
The threat from the Houthis risks further disruption to international shipping, with hostilities in the region having already led to global fuel prices fluctuating significantly.
Iran and the US signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in June to halt military operations and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as well as to reach an agreement to end the war over the following 60 days.
But three weeks after it was signed, Trump declared the ceasefire “over” after Iranian attacks on ships in Hormuz, and US strikes in response.
The war with Iran has cost the US some $37.5bn (£28bn) so far – a rise of nearly $8bn since the last estimate in May, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday.
Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Hegseth said military training would have to be curtailed unless lawmakers approved an urgent funding boost.
Trump is due on Wednesday to attend a transfer ceremony in the city of Dover, Delaware, for the bodies of US servicepeople who were recently killed in the Middle East. He earlier said Iran would pay for American fatalities “many times over”.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon gave the name of a fourth soldier believed to have been killed in recent days.
It said Sgt Angel S Rampersad, 28, who had previously been declared missing after an Iranian strike in Jordan, was thought to have died alongside two others in the same strike and another in Iraq.
Source: BBC
