THE United States Army has launched a seventh consecutive night of strikes on Iran, as a military adviser to the Iranian supreme leader warns of a full-scale offensive if US attacks continue.
In a post on X on Friday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the strikes began at 19:00 GMT (10:30pm in Iran) and were “designed to continue degrading Iranian military capabilities at the Commander in Chief’s direction”.
CENTCOM later said the operation had employed “fighter aircraft, aerial drones and warships” to strike Iran’s “surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities”. It said locations targeted included Jask, Sirik, Bushehr, Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Ahvaz and Yazd.
Five explosions were heard in the early hours of Saturday in Yazd, in central Iran, the state news agency IRNA reported. Iranian state television also said three explosions were heard in the southern city of Sirik, as another news agency, Mehr, said blasts were heard “in several provinces in the south”.
Iranian state media later reported that at least three people were killed and eight others wounded in attacks in Hormozgan province, which borders the Strait of Hormuz.
The US State Department has also urged Americans to reconsider travel to and through the Middle East as regional tensions continue to rise. In a statement posted on X, the department said the security environment remained “complex with the potential for unforeseen escalation”, advising citizens to review their travel plans, monitor developments closely and check with airlines before flying. Americans already in the region were reminded of the “continued need for caution”.
As the war continues to escalate, fears are growing that the conflict could spiral out of control.
Colonel Abbas Dahouk, a former senior military adviser for Middle East affairs at the US State Department, told Al Jazeera that any move by Iran and its Houthi allies to disrupt shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait would mark a “serious escalation”.
“If it is disrupted, then definitely it will increase pressure not only in the region, but also on the international markets and the United States as well. The United States is thinking about this, and perhaps there will be retaliation somehow,” Dahouk said.
Tehran accuses Washington of targeting civilian infrastructure and committing war crimes. Footage and images published by Iranian state media show heavily damaged bridges and railway lines in the country’s south.
Iran has warned it would respond in kind by striking civilian infrastructure across the Gulf region, risking severe humanitarian consequences.
Iran has been retaliating to the strikes by targeting what it says are US-linked assets in the region.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it struck a depot housing US unmanned aerial vehicles in Bahrain late on Friday. Washington has not confirmed the attack.
Iran’s army also said it had struck US assets in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait. In a statement carried by the Tasnim news agency, Iran’s military said missiles targeted the aircraft hangar, parking area and fuel tanks at the Sheikh Isa airbase, as well as several communication bridges, claiming the base had been used to launch operations against Iran.
The United States has not independently confirmed the claims. Jordan’s military said its air defences intercepted and downed 10 Iranian missiles that entered the kingdom’s airspace early on Saturday. Jordan said no casualties or damage were reported.
Warning sirens were also activated across Bahrain for the fourth time in a matter of hours, with the Ministry of Interior urging residents to remain calm and head to the nearest safe place.
Earlier on Friday, Major-General Mohsen Rezaei, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, warned that Tehran will move beyond the military phase of deterrence and enter the phase of “offence and complete destruction” if US attacks do not cease.
Tehran is ready to resume “full-scale offensive operations” if strikes continue for another two or three days, he said, according to the Iranian news agency IRIB.
“Iran will no longer limit itself to retaliatory, like-for-like responses … and no political border will be safe,” Rezaei added.
Rezaei said Washington’s attritional strategy of “war and negotiation” had reached a dead end and that the intensity of Iranian attacks would increase in the coming days.
US attacks overnight on Thursday into Friday killed eight people in Iran, the country said. The IRGC then launched attacks against US military assets in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Jordan and Syria.
On Friday, Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy announced that Iran had struck a power and water plant, damaging a large number of electricity generation units and sparking a fire that has since been extinguished.
Citizens and residents have been urged to ration electricity as a result.
Gulf states are heavily dependent on water desalination plants, which account for 40 percent of global desalinated water production. Attacks on such facilities could have catastrophic humanitarian and economic consequences within days.