IRAN’s authorities have promised retaliation in case of threatened attacks by the United States against critical energy infrastructure, while military strikes continue across the region.
“The United States is moving at an accelerating pace to fan the flames of a full-scale regional war,” Major General Ali Abdollahi, head of Iran’s wartime military command, said in a statement on Saturday.
Addressing regional neighbours, he said the US was using their capital, resources and infrastructure as a shield for its own interests while strengthening Israel’s war machine.
“It is hereby stated explicitly: Muslim countries must, with foresight, monitor America’s crimes and reconsider their cooperation and alignment with the US. Otherwise, any country that makes itself a defensive shield for criminal, aggressor America will burn in the fire of war,” said Abdollahi.
The warning comes in reaction to reports by major US media outlets that the US and Israel may be imminently launching an extensive wave of attacks against Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including power plants and petrochemical manufacturers.
President Donald Trump has yet to give final authorisation on an operation that could potentially last up to two weeks and aim to cut electricity across Iran’s capital, Tehran, and create disruptions across the country, the reports said, citing unnamed sources.
The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said earlier this week that US air defences have performed largely well, but persistent combat operations have reduced the inventory of missile interceptors in the US military’s arsenal, with Patriot inventories now under 1,000 and THAAD at about 250.
The Iranian state-linked Tasnim news website on Saturday cited an unnamed source as saying armed forces have prepared an extensive plan of retaliation to the “potential madness” of the US by hitting “vital infrastructure” linked with the US and Israel.
On Tuesday, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said “we very much want to strike Iran’s energy targets.
“The United States is not approving it at present, because of concern that Iran would strike neighbouring countries and there would be a global oil crisis,” he told a security conference broadcast by Channel 14, adding that Israel was ready to “set Iran back 40 years”.
Since the start of the war on February 28, the US and Israel have hit military bases and leaders across Iran, but also targeted the country’s civilian infrastructure, parts of which will require years and extensive investments to rebuild. The bombing has only exacerbated Iran’s internal woes, including a contracting economy and a major energy imbalance that are squeezing more than 90 million Iranians.
In response, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s regular army have launched ballistic missiles and drones at US and Israeli military bases across the region, but have also responded to energy attacks by striking energy infrastructure in Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.
Amid the threats of escalation, strikes have intensified across the region in recent days.
The US military attacked at least five Iranian provinces overnight into Thursday, saying the targets were IRGC command centres, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and air-defence sites, and maritime capabilities. Several soldiers and multiple civilians were among the casualties, including a two-year-old boy who was killed when his home was hit in the southern island of Qeshm.
On Saturday, Kuwait’s army said its air defences destroyed multiple Iranian drones within the country’s airspace, with some damage reported to government facilities and civilian vehicles.
At least two vessels were hit off the coast of Oman, with one suffering damage to its engine room, according to Western maritime authorities.
Iranian state media on Saturday broadcast footage from proximity to the missile-struck ship, warning others that this was “the smoke of mistakenly trusting the US” promises of safe passage through the southern corridor of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran also said four other ships were turned back, as the waterway remains closed to traffic not approved by the IRGC.
In Iraq, sporadic drone attacks have targeted Iranian Kurdish opposition groups, which have raised the idea of entering the conflict to topple the Islamic Republic in Iran. Two Kurdish armed groups separately claimed they were targeted on Friday. Pro-Iran media in Iraq on Saturday released footage purporting to show a refinery in Iraqi Kurdistan’s Erbil on fire after being targeted by an unnamed actor.