TEHRAN — As the United States continues to launch airstrikes inside Iran in direct violation of a recent interim agreement with Tehran, Iranian armed forces have delivered a strong military response, targeting American military bases and assets across the Persian Gulf region and wider West Asia.
American forces targeted civilian infrastructure across several Iranian provinces into Friday, including the destruction of the maritime control tower at Chabahar’s Shahid Kalantari Port, killing eight people. The multi-province bombardment, which stretched from late Thursday into early Friday morning, primarily struck the infrastructure-heavy coastal and border regions of Hormozgan, Bushehr, Sistan and Baluchestan, Khuzestan, and Lorestan.
Nearly 3,470 people in Iran were killed during the first phase of the joint US-Israeli war. A Pakistani-mediated ceasefire on April 8 paused the war that had begun on February 28. Now officials say a further 38 civilians have been killed and more than 400 injured in US attacks since fighting resumed following the June 22 meeting in Switzerland with the aim of advancing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) reached between Tehran and Washington days earlier.
The latest escalation directly follows threats by President Donald Trump to target Iran’s critical civilian infrastructure, including transportation networks and power grids.
The maritime control tower in Chabahar was struck for the third time by US warplanes on Friday morning, causing its complete collapse. Chabahar holds immense strategic significance as Iran’s only deep-water port with direct access to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz entirely. This gateway serves as a critical alternative trade route for Iran, gaining further significance as the US attempts to reimpose a naval blockade on Iranian ports.
Simultaneously, US aircraft targeted six bridges in Hormozgan’s Khamir County during the early hours of Friday, severely damaging key transport routes linking Bandar Abbas, Bandar Khamir, and Lar, alongside arterial roads running through Latidan, Kahorestan, Keshar, and Maru village. According to the Hormozgan Governor’s Office, seven people were killed in the bridge attacks.
Further compounding the logistics blitz, a railway branch station in Bandar Abbas was struck shortly after midnight. Provincial officials noted that the station is located away from residential areas and sustained limited infrastructural damage.
The coordinated highway and railway bridge strikes appear explicitly designed to isolate Bandar Abbas—Iran’s primary maritime trade hub—from transit links leading into the country’s central region toward the capital, Tehran. While alternative domestic supply lines remain operational, the hostile US strikes appear aimed at expanding further, clearing aiming to disrupt the movement of essential goods needed for Iranian people.
Reports of aggression extended across multiple fronts. Governor Mohammad Mozaffari confirmed that Bushehr came under two distinct US attacks within hours. In Khuzestan Province, Deputy Governor Valiollah Hayati stated that American forces attacked positions around the provincial capital of Ahvaz on Thursday night. Hayati noted that the full dimensions of the strike remain under investigation. The latest escalation near Ahvaz follows previous US strikes that forced the precautionary evacuation of Shahid Baghaei Hospital. Iran previously slammed that hospital attack as a “cowardly war crime,” and the Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences confirmed the facility was temporarily taken out of service.
In western Iran, Lorestan Deputy Governor Saeed Pourali confirmed that US forces targeted an area in the Veysian district of Chegeni County on Friday, with further investigative details pending.
Iran’s retaliation
In response to the economic and civilian targeting, Iran has declared the vital Strait of Hormuz closed “until further notice” and at least until “the end of US interference in the region.”
Concurrently, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) unleashed heavy retaliatory salvos of ballistic missiles and combat drones against American military installations and equipment across Bahrain, Kuwait, Syria, and Oman. On Friday, a US special operations command center was directly hit at the al-Tanf garrison in southern Syria.
The IRGC confirmed its forces targeted US fighter jets and aerial refueling aircraft stationed at forward deployment bases in Jordan and Qatar. It noted that these regional assets were directly used by Washington to launch the overnight strikes against civilian infrastructure in southern Iran.
In three separate military communiqués issued on Friday, the IRGC announced that the latest waves of Operation Nasr 2 were carried out in direct response to US war crimes committed during overnight attacks on civilian targets in Iran. One statement specifically addressed the Jordanian population, highlighting that the US military had relocated the forward headquarters of US Central Command (CENTCOM) forces from Qatar to Al Azraq Air Base in Jordan following Iran’s high-precision strike on Al Udeid Air Base last year.
The IRGC stated that the Al Azraq base hosts dozens of US aerial refueling aircraft alongside F-35, F-15, and F-16 fighter jets utilized to launch hostile operations against Iran. According to the statement, US forces utilized these Jordanian assets on Thursday night to strike civilian targets in Bandar Abbas, including bridges, residential neighborhoods, and a water pumping station.
In retaliation, the IRGC launched the 14th wave of Operation Nasr 2, firing multiple ballistic missiles and numerous drones at the US aircraft assets in Jordan. Field reports indicated that 10 aerial refueling aircraft arrived at the Jordanian base from Europe on Friday morning—a deployment regional observers state indicates that existing refueling tankers stationed at the base were successfully neutralized during the overnight Iranian counterstrikes.
The IRGC also confirmed its forces executed a heavy, surprise bombardment against the US-operated Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
“The American enemy and the hosts of its bases in the region should know that crossing the red lines and attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure will carry a very harsh and devastating price,” warned the IRGC. “Should the enemy continue this course, even more crushing responses are on the way—responses that will be remembered in the history of warfare.”
In its third statement, the IRGC announced the launch of the 15th wave of Operation Nasr 2, confirming that its Ground Force successfully destroyed an American HIMARS launcher and its missile cache in Kuwait.
This coincides with field reports indicating that precision missile strikes targeted the headquarters of an anti-Iran Kurdish separatist group in the Zarkwezlah area near Sulaymaniyah Province in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. Local sources reported that eight members of the group were killed in the strike.
IRGC vows to continue ‘effective’ strikes
Vowing a sustained defense of the nation, Brigadier General Seyyed Majid Mousavi, the Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, issued a stern warning on Friday.
“Our effective and targeted firing from all over Iran at the enemy will continue until calm returns to the southern coastline and the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
He stressed that there is no strategic difference between the capital and the south of the country, and that any aggression on them will be treated equally. “Our view is that land is land; Tehran to the south are unified for Iran.”
US war quagmire
From the standpoint of international law, the Islamic Republic of Iran possesses an inherent and undeniable right to self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. The ongoing American military actions are a flagrant violation of the 14-point memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on June 17, which was specifically drafted to anchor the Pakistan-mediated ceasefire on April 8.
By unilaterally breaching this MoU and aggressively targeting non-military assets, the United States has shattered the legal framework governing the pause in hostilities. Consequently, Iran’s surgical strikes against American military hubs hosting hostile aircraft across West Asia represent a legitimate, proportionate legal response to continuous external aggression.
Furthermore, the deliberate targeting of critical infrastructure—including maritime traffic towers, transport bridges, medical facilities, and civilian power grids amid punishing 50-degree summer heat—unequivocally constitutes a war crime under standard international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions. These actions are calculated to inflict collective punishment on a civilian population of 90 million people by disrupting food logistics, health services, and basic electricity.
Ultimately, Washington’s expanded air campaign underscores a profound strategic failure. During the initial 39 days of this conflict, the United States achieved absolutely nothing of tactical value, failing entirely to force Tehran into submission or weaken its regional posture. By attempting to mask this failure with malicious strikes on civilian infrastructure, the United States has only managed to widen the theater of war while leaving its regional assets exposed to sophisticated missile and drone technology.
By pushing this conflict beyond the boundaries of the original 39-day war, Washington has walked into a strategic quagmire. With Iran maintaining ironclad control over the Strait of Hormuz “until further notice,” the US will find itself facing immense consequences, leaving its military strategy with eggs on its face and its regional presence completely compromised.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: tehrantimes.com
