THE United States military has said it bombed Iran for the 13th consecutive night after President Donald Trump threatened more intense attacks on the country amid risk of further escalation.
The Middle East-based Central Command (CENTCOM) of the US military said early on Friday that it targeted “Iranian military command centers, drone storage facilities, communication networks, coastal surveillance sites, and maritime capabilities”.
The attacks “aimed to hold Iran accountable and diminish threats from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to commercial shipping”, the US military said.
It added that Strait of Hormuz remains open for transit despite recent attacks from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), noting that commercial vessels continue to freely navigate the strait with US military support.
The IRGC, however, has stressed that it has control of the waterway and safe passage is only guaranteed through coordination with Iran.
Speaking from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said there were reports of explosions on Qeshm Island, adding that blasts were also heard Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan province.
Elsewhere in Khuzestan, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported US missile strikes in the cities of Andimeshk and Omidiyeh with.
US attacks on a residential neighbourhood in the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas also injured two people, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Trump had stepped up his rhetoric against Tehran earlier. He told the US news website Axios that he may launch the largest strikes on Iran yet after Tehran carried out another wave of retaliatory attacks on US allies in the Gulf, including hitting a telecommunications tower in Kuwait.
Trump said he was “considering a massive attack” that would be “bigger than ever before”.
“I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it,” Trump said.
The threat raises the stakes yet again in a weeks-long military confrontation in which the US has attacked Iran for 12 straight nights, including hitting bridges and tunnels, according to Iranian media reports.
Iran’s retaliatory attacks have rippled throughout much of the Gulf, sparking fears of a worsening energy crisis.
The spiralling conflict has all but destroyed an interim peace deal signed by the US and Iran last month.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi warned on Wednesday that Tehran would retaliate “an eye for an eye” against any future attacks, including those on Iran’s infrastructure.
After another night of US attacks on Wednesday, Iran responded with missile and drone attacks on Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait on Thursday.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the attacks in Jordan and Kuwait targeted and hit US military assets.
The IRGC also acknowledged attacking a telecommunications tower in Kuwait, saying it was in retaliation for US attacks on telecommunications towers in Iran.
In a statement addressing the Kuwaiti people directly, the IRGC insisted that the US, not Iran, had breached the Gulf state’s “territorial integrity and sovereignty”.
Later on Thursday, Kuwait said that its Abdali border crossing with Iraq had also come under attack by “hostile drones”.
“The armed forces’ retaliatory attacks will continue as long as the US attacks on the country’s infrastructure and coastal areas continue,” said the Iranian army’s spokesperson, Mohammad Akraminia.
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi group further expanded the confrontation on Thursday by firing at two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, leading to broad international condemnation and a spike in global oil prices.
“The situation is getting out of control. It is teetering on the edge of the unimaginable,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a meeting of the Security Council. “One crisis feeds another. One escalation triggers the next.”
The Houthis have declared a blockade of Saudi Arabian ports, destabilising a second key global shipping route: the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively shut since the US and Israel launched the war on Iran in late February.
Reporting from Sanaa, Yemen, Al Jazeera’s Yousef Mawry cited Houthi sources as saying that the facilities of Saudi Arabia’s national oil company Aramco “could become a future target” of the Houthis if Riyadh does not lift its own blockade on Houthi-controlled ports.
The international oil benchmark Brent crude surged past $100 a barrel on Thursday for the first time in May, in what analysts said could have an even greater impact on the global economy.
“Much of the world’s spare production capacity has already been used, while strategic and commercial oil inventories are lower than when the war began, leaving the market with fewer buffers against a prolonged supply disruption,” said Janiv Shah, vice president of the Rystad Energy consultancy.