The United States has bombed Iran for a second consecutive day, hours after President Donald Trump warned from the NATO summit in Ankara that Washington would strike again.
US Central Command said its forces had begun “additional strikes against Iran” to reduce Tehran’s ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. It said the operation was a response to recent aggression against merchant vessels and their civilian crews in an international waterway.
Trump had signalled the attacks earlier on July 8 while meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the margins of the summit. “We’re going to hit them hard tonight,” he told reporters.
The US President also said the memorandum of understanding signed with Iran in June was finished, describing the country’s leadership in insulting terms and leaving the future of negotiations in doubt.
Iranian media reported explosions across the south of the country. The Mehr news agency said air defences had been activated at Bandar Abbas, on the Hormuz coast, while port facilities and a maritime control tower at Chabahar were struck and combat aircraft were tracked over Isfahan.
State broadcaster IRIB reported projectiles hitting islands in the strait and two blasts at Jask, in Hormozgan province. The governor of Iranshahr, in Sistan and Baluchistan, said a firefighter had been killed in an attack on the city’s airport.
Mohsen Rezai, a military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, warned that the aggressor enemy and its accomplices would be severely punished, according to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He argued that Washington treated negotiation as a bridge to be crossed rather than a lasting commitment.
The strikes followed an earlier American wave against more than 80 targets with precision munitions. The IRGC claimed it had destroyed 85 US military installations in Bahrain and Kuwait and downed an MQ-9 drone, though Washington did not confirm any losses and Kuwait said its air defences had intercepted the incoming missiles and drones without damage.
The escalation overshadowed the Ankara summit, where Trump criticised NATO allies for declining to support the US campaign. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Rome would not take part in military action against Iran, restating a position held since the conflict began.
Brent crude climbed about 6 per cent to $78 (€67) a barrel after Trump’s remarks, while European shares fell. Roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil passes through the strait, which Iran kept closed for months earlier this year.
