Analysis suggests precision US strikes on Iranian water facility

New York: Strikes early on Wednesday (US time) destroyed what appears to be a drinking water facility on Iran’s southern coast, near the Strait of Hormuz, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

Around the time of the strikes, US Central Command said in a post on the social platform X that it had conducted attacks near the strait “with precision munitions from US Air Force and Navy fighter jets”.

Iranian state media reported that the US had hit water storage buildings, and a local official said that water had been cut off to more than 20,000 people living in a town and villages nearby.

Temperatures in the area have topped 37.8 degrees this week.

A commercial satellite image from Tuesday morning shows two small water structures in the village of Bemani. Both have light blue pipes, typical for water distribution infrastructure, as is their location – on a hill outside a populated area.

The buildings are consistent with the description of the two storage tanks that Abdolhamid Hamzehpour, the head of the provincial water authority, said were destroyed.

It is unclear if the US intentionally struck the water facilities or knew what was in the buildings. Deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure could constitute a war crime under international law.

Videos released on Wednesday by Iranian media outlets, including state media, and the provincial water authority, show that the roof of the smaller building collapsed.

The larger facility next to it still stands, but images show that it has a small impact hole in the centre of its roof. The Times confirmed the images of the structure by matching the visible surroundings to reference imagery of the site.

A photo of fragments that Tasnim, a semi-official Iranian news agency, said were recovered from the site showed remnants identified as a GBU-39 bomb by researchers with the Open Source Munitions Portal, a database of weapon fragments documented in conflict zones.

The GBU-39, a small precision-guided glide bomb in the 250-pound class, is consistent with the damage shown in the footage of the damaged building: a clean hole punched through the building’s roof and limited blast damage around it.

Both buildings stand outside the village, and there is no other infrastructure in the immediate vicinity. Hitting remote buildings and striking the centre of a roof are considered likely indicators of a precision strike.

In a text message, a Central Command spokesperson said he was aware of the reports of damage at the facility but did not provide further information.

Hamzehpour said mobile water tankers had brought in water to supply residents while crews built a new service line that bypassed the damaged tanks, a task he said had been accomplished within 12 hours.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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