US strikes hit Iran for seventh consecutive night
The US military says it is carrying out the seventh night of strikes on Iran since US President Donald Trump declared the temporary ceasefire agreement
The US military says it is carrying out the seventh night of strikes on Iran since US President Donald Trump declared the temporary ceasefire agreement was "over". "The strikes are designed to continue degrading Iranian military capabilities at the Commander in Chief's direction," the US military Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement. Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said two oil tankers had exploded in the Strait of Hormuz while passing through a mined part of the shipping channel - a claim later dismissed as false by Centcom. Iranian media reported that explosions were heard in the central city of Yazd and at Qeshm island and the port of Bandar Abbas next to the strait.
Iran's state-run Fars agency said two oil tankers "exploded and caught fire while passing through a mined route south of the Strait of Hormuz". Later Centcom posted on "Like most IRGC claims, this is false." Shipping traffic in the vital Strait of Hormuz has largely stopped amid the continuing tit-for-tat strikes by US and Iranian forces. In normal times the strait accounts for about one-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas supplies. On Friday, Iran's armed forces claimed to have attacked multiple US military facilities across the Gulf region in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and – for the first time – Syria, which the US denied.
Earlier, Kuwaiti officials said Iranian drone strikes had injured a number of their soldiers, while a power plant and water desalination stations had also been damaged. Sources have told the BBC's US partner CBS news that several American service members were injured during Iranian attacks on two Jordanian bases over the past week. Washington denied Tehran's earlier claims that its forces hit civilian infrastructure in Iran, including bridges, a train station and an airport. Provincial authorities in the affected region, Hormozgan province, said seven people were killed in the attacks. BBC Verify and BBC Persian have verified footage of damage to Gariveh Bridge, after night videos showed a ball of flames on top of it.
Daylight images showed a crumbled stretch of road with rubble around the broken bridge. A White House spokesperson told the BBC the US had "carried out strikes exclusively on military targets, including military logistics infrastructure". Friday marks one week of nightly US attacks since peace talks with Iran collapsed, as tensions over the future of the Strait of Hormuz hampered efforts to broker a permanent ceasefire.
The BriefWire