US launches ‘wave of strikes’ on Iran after Trump tells Iran that power plants, bridges will be targeted if no deal is made
US strikes Iran for fourth consecutive day as Iran deputy foreign minister says interim deal all but ‘dismantled’
21.08 AEST
Summary of developments so far
The US military said it has launched a new wave of strikes against Iran as the warring countries continue their back-and-forth attacks in the Middle East. US Central Command (Centcom) issued a statement today announcing the strikes that took place during daylight hours. In its attacks over recent days, the US has struck Iran only at night.
Centcom said the strikes were “designed to further degrade military capabilities Iranian forces have used to attack commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz”.
The Iranian army vowed a “decisive response” after seven personnel were reported killed in a US attack on an Iranian military base. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported a number of personnel were also wounded in the incident at the base in Bampur in south-eastern Iran.
A view of a billboard depicting US president Donald Trump in Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesMore than 30 people have been killed in southern Iran in US attacks in recent days, said government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani. Iran’s health ministry said more than 260 people have been injured across the country in the latest wave of US strikes.
Sirens rang out in Bahrain, while Kuwait and Jordan reported intercepting drones and missiles fired from Iran. The Iranian state news agency IRNA reported that Tehran forces launched a drone attack on a military base in Jordan that hosts US warplanes, while the IRGC claimed to have hit American facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait.
US strikes targeted Iran’s southern port city of Bushehr, home to the country’s only civilian nuclear plant, according to state media. It was the second day in a row that the city has come under attack, according to IRNA.Share
Updated at 21.10 AEST
10m ago00.53 AEST
William ChristouIran has threatened to halt all energy exports from the Middle East after the US reimposed a blockade of its ports and ships, as the two countries traded strikes for a fifth day and Donald Trump threatened to expand US strikes on Iran next week.
The US blockade came into force early on Wednesday, prompting Iran to shut the strait of Hormuz and carry out a wave of retaliatory airstrikes on countries hosting US bases in the region.
“Regional energy exports are either shared by all or denied to all,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement on Wednesday. It added that the strait would remain closed until the “end of America’s evils”, further disrupting shipping in the waterway that before the war was a chokepoint for a fifth of the world’s oil and gas.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said the renewed US blockade had “in a way, dismantled the Islamabad memorandum”, the interim deal that, among other things, was meant to keep the strait open and give space for negotiations towards a permanent peace.
The flare-up in violence and disruption to shipping further drove up the price of oil, with the price of crude on Wednesday continuing to rise past the one-month high reached on Tuesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment