US intensifies strikes on Iran amid escalating tensions
The United States intensified its strikes targeting Iran early Thursday, hitting targets further north as American forces also fired into a ship it accused of trying to break its naval blockade on the Islamic Republic, reports BritPanorama.
Days of back-and-forth strikes by the U.S. and Iran across the Middle East — and renewed threats to the Strait of Hormuz — have shredded the interim deal to end the Iran war and could tip the region back into all-out war. Already, Iranian officials say U.S. strikes have killed more than 35 people and wounded over 300 others.
For the first time in this latest round of violence, U.S. strikes reached into areas around Iran’s capital, Tehran, showing a widening set of targets for the Americans.
When the U.S. 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, fertilizer, and many other goods soaring far beyond the region and gave Iran significant leverage in negotiations.
Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, escalated Iran’s threats by referencing U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated warning that America could hit Iranian bridges and power plants.
“All the infrastructure in the region will be crushed under the steel blows of the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran” should Trump’s threat be carried out, Zolfaghari stated.
“Under no circumstances and in no way will we allow America, as a foreign and extra-regional country, to interfere in the Strait of Hormuz,” he added. “This is Iran’s invincible red line.”
Those rising prices pose a particular challenge to Trump and his Republican Party, which hopes to retain control of Congress in elections in November. However, Washington has struggled to successfully reopen the waterway, leading to Trump reimposing the naval blockade on Wednesday. Mediators have sought to calm the tensions, but so far have been unsuccessful.
Trump again insisted that Iran was ready to strike a peace deal, but did not elaborate. “They don’t like what we’re doing, and they do want to settle. We’ll find out whether or not we settle with them, or we just finish it off,” he said Wednesday at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania.
Trump separately announced on social media that Tehran had made a goodwill gesture by releasing an American citizen wrongly detained in Iran since 2024. He didn’t elaborate further. Human rights lawyer Jared Genser released a statement identifying the detainee as his client Dena Karari, a U.S.-Iranian citizen who runs a nonprofit and was charged with espionage.
Iran did not immediately acknowledge the release, and her case was not publicly known, as is sometimes the case with detentions in the Islamic Republic.
The U.S. strikes early Thursday hit areas around Tehran, and state media reported that American attacks targeted Semnan province, home to Iran’s ballistic missile production and space program.
Iranian media also reported strikes Thursday morning around the provinces of Hamedan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Markazi, and Sistan and Baluchistan.
On Wednesday, the U.S. resumed striking Iran during daylight, further increasing the tempo of the attacks. An assault on Greater Tunb Island, a strategic point in the Strait of Hormuz, targeted Iranian defense and missile sites, according to Central Command.
Simultaneously, U.S. military forces opened fire on the Curacao-flagged oil tanker Belma as it was sailing toward Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf. After the vessel “ignored multiple warnings,” a U.S. aircraft disabled it by firing a missile into the ship’s smokestack.
Another strike on Wednesday targeted a barracks for Iran’s 388th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, which operates tanks and armored vehicles, in Sistan and Baluchestan province. Iranian state television reported that Americans fired at least 13 missiles in the attack, resulting in seven deaths, including conscripts and career soldiers, with a number of troops wounded.
In retaliation on Thursday, Iran launched missile and drone attacks on Bahrain, Jordan, and Kuwait, as reported by authorities in those countries hosting U.S. forces. There was no immediate acknowledgment of damage or casualties from these attacks.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi condemned an overnight drone attack on the city of Irbil in Iraq’s semiautonomous northern Kurdish region. The drone, intercepted by authorities, came during his trip to the U.S., where he stated Iraq would work to disarm non-state armed groups, including those backed by Iran.
The latest round of fighting is centred on the Strait of Hormuz. The challenge of reopening the strait has plagued the U.S. since Iran choked it off in the early days of the war.
During the interim deal, some ships began moving through the passage using a route near Oman overseen by the U.S. military that is outside Tehran’s control.
In recent days, Iran attacked ships using that route, leading to a series of retaliatory strikes. The U.S. has threatened to reopen the strait by force, but experts suggest that this would require a much larger military presence if not tens of thousands of ground troops. Imposing the blockade remains another avenue to exert pressure on Iran.
Oil prices are continuing to rise. The price for Brent crude oil, the international standard, traded above $85 a barrel on Thursday, more than 15% higher than prior to the outbreak of the war, but still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the conflict.
