The U.S. carried out a bombing campaign against Iran for the second consecutive night, with Iran retaliating with drones and ballistic missiles against American and U.S.-allied bases in the region, as the Iran War entered its 132nd day on Thursday.
Although CENTCOM said that the U.S. strikes targeted “military” sites, the Financial Times reported that targets included civilian infrastructure, such as railroad bridges on the route to the holy city of Mashhad, where the funeral of assassinated former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is currently taking place. FT reported that passenger train services in Iran were disrupted on Thursday morning by the strikes and that electricity infrastructure in southeastern Iran was also hit, cutting off power to parts of the country. President Donald Trump has threatened to attack Iran’s bridges and power plants.
The deputy governor of Iran’s Bushehr province told Iranian state media Thursday that the U.S. also bombed the perimeter of the Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Iran’s IRGC said it retaliated to U.S. overnight strikes with drone attacks on an early-warning satellite site in Qatar, fuel storage for the U.S. military in Bahrain, and an air defense system in Kuwait. The IRGC also reportedly launched missiles at the Ali al-Salem base in Kuwait, the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, and the Azraq military base in Jordan.
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Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz slowed significantly following U.S. strikes Tuesday and Wednesday, with Kpler reporting that only 13 tankers crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, compared with an average of 33 per day over the previous week.
Trump on Wednesday evening said that “Iran just called. They want to make a deal very badly,” adding that “they’re sort of crazy. But they want to make a deal badly.” Trump had earlier in the day said that the memorandum of understanding signed last month was “over.” The MOU had served as an interim peace agreement to lay the groundwork for a final deal.
The price of Brent Crude oil remained elevated at $77.30 on Thursday morning, with AAA reporting the national average price of regular gas at $3.85.
