DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. military launched airstrikes Sunday targeting Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard to retaliate for the killing of American troops in Jordan, further widening the exchange of fire between them as an interim deal seeking an end to their war has collapsed.
The strikes are part of a weeklong campaign that began with a struggle over control of the Strait of Hormuz and has seen Iran strike U.S.-allied countries across the Middle East.
The U.S. has targeted bridges, electrical facilities and other targets in Iran, and Tehran has retaliated by hitting power and desalination plants in Kuwait, threatening daily life in that small, oil-rich desert nation. Iran also has stepped up its threats to further expand the strikes, drawing a warning overnight from the United Arab Emirates.
Kuwait and Bahrain again activated air defenses Sunday morning as they warned of incoming Iranian drones and missiles.
The latest US strikes come after troops were killed
The U.S. military’s Central Command in its statement also said it hit “Iranian military coastal surveillance and air defense facilities, maritime capabilities and missile and drone storage sites.” It said the attack was designed to degrade Iran’s ability to control the Strait of Hormuz and “swiftly punish Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces,” a key power base in Iran’s theocracy that controls its ballistic missile arsenal.
Footage released by the U.S. military appeared to show strikes carried out by fighter jets and by Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from the sea. One target site appeared to be in a valley of a mountainous region. The Guard often has missile bases and other military equipment tucked into mountain ranges.
An Iranian attack on a base in Jordan killed two American service members, left one missing and four requiring hospitalization, the U.S. military said on Saturday. Since the war began, 16 U.S. service members have been killed and over 430 wounded.
Iranian authorities said on Sunday that at least 50 people have been killed and 517 wounded in the latest U.S. strikes.
Iran has provided no overall information on its materiel losses in the American campaign, which is now in its eighth day as the nations vie over control of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded passes in peacetime.
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Iran’s atomic energy agency said that U.S. strikes early on Sunday morning targeted a construction site of a planned nuclear power plant in southwest Iran, according to Iranian state television.
Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC of the planned site of the Darkhovin Nuclear Power Plant show earth clearing but very little construction having taken place there as of July 9. There is no radiological material known to be at the site, which Iran had not previously announced as targeted throughout the war.
Nearly every Gulf Arab state has been targeted by Iran for retaliatory strikes
Kuwait said on Sunday that one of the country’s power and water desalination plants was attacked for the second time in two days, causing fires. Its Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy said that the power grid remains stable, yet the attack marked the latest instance in which strikes — by both the United States and Iran — have targeted civilian infrastructure relied on by millions of people.
In Kuwait, about 90% of drinking water comes from desalination.
The attacks in Kuwait and Bahrain were the latest reported by U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf as well as in Jordan.
Iran has over the past week refrained from striking Israel — which has stayed out of this round of fighting — or the United Arab Emirates, a regional military power.
The semiofficial Iranian news agency Fars, believed to be close to the Guard, issued a threat against the UAE late on Saturday. Quoting an anonymous official, Fars said that continued strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure would mean that the “airports of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as well as the ports of Fujairah and Jebel Ali, must be immediately evacuated.”
Apparently responding to the threat, the Emirates’ Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling “for exercising the utmost restraint in order to avoid dangerous repercussions and the region being pulled into new levels of violence and instability.”
During the Iran war, officials say both the UAE and Saudi Arabia carried out retaliatory airstrikes against Tehran for targeting their nations.
The secretary-general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, accused Iran of war crimes for strikes on infrastructure and civilian facilities. International humanitarian law generally protects civilian infrastructure, such as bridges and power plants, from attack, but such sites can lose these protections if used for military purposes. In such cases, attacks must be proportionate and minimize harm to civilians.
Campaign comes as the Strait of Hormuz remains key to the conflict
Trump has threatened to target Iran’s power stations and bridges to try to compel Tehran to loosen its hold on the Strait of Hormuz. Recent attacks suggest the U.S. military is carrying out that plan, beginning first with coastal areas of Iran on the strait.
The U.S. in the past week also reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports to halt its shipments of crude oil, and the military on Saturday said it had redirected five ships and disabled one since then.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, in a statement Saturday, warned of “unforgettable lessons” if the U.S. keeps attacking the Islamic Republic. An Iranian negotiator said Tehran was suspending its commitments to the interim deal signed about a month ago and aimed at permanently ending the fighting.
Iran’s joint military command said that U.S. “covetousness, bullying, totalitarianism or brutality” would meet with a “devastating response.”
__ Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank.
