Dubai, Jul 19: The US military said Sunday that it launched new airstrikes against Iran to “swiftly punish” the country’s Revolutionary Guard for an attack in Jordan that killed two American service members, left one missing and four requiring hospitalization.
The strikes were designed to further degrade Iran’s ability to restrict the traffic of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, US Central Command said. The waterway accounted for roughly 20 per cent of global oil supplies before the war.
An area near Sirik, on the Strait of Hormuz, was targeted around 1:30 am local time, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, which cited local authorities in southern Hormozgan province.
The new strikes came after the U.S. military announced its first troop deaths from direct Iranian fire since the opening days of the war, following a drone and missile attack on a base in Jordan on Friday. The dead were not identified, and Central Command wouldn’t offer any further details on the deaths.
Since the war began, 16 US service members have been killed and over 430 wounded.
Strikes reported in Iraq
————————
In neighboring Iraq, a base of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, an Iranian Kurdish dissident group, near Irbil was struck by a drone early Sunday, wounding eight of its members, according to Rebaz Sharifi, a military official with the group.
Residents of Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, also heard explosions from air defenses early Sunday.
Irbil has been targeted by drone attacks multiple times over the past four days, which coincided with a visit by new Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to Washington last week and an ongoing escalation between the U.S. and Iran.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but in the past both Iran and Iran-backed Iraqi militias have launched attacks in the Kurdish region, where both U.S. troops and armed Kurdish Iranian dissident groups are present.
Iran’s supreme leader warns of unforgettable lessons
——————————————————–
Minutes before the US announced the troop deaths earlier Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader warned of “unforgettable lessons” if the US keeps attacking the Islamic Republic.
The remarks read out on state TV and attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, still unseen since the war began, also called President Donald Trump’s signature “worthless and invalid.” An Iranian negotiator said Tehran was suspending its commitments to the interim deal signed about a month ago and aimed at permanently ending the fighting.
Tehran’s declarations snapped another fragile thread as the war shows no end in sight. Now Khamenei warns of “lessons” not only from Iran but also its armed proxies in the region, calling them the “Axis of Resistance.” The U.S. issued a global travel alert over the rising tensions.
The battle has focused on control of the Strait of Hormuz. The widening strikes now threaten civilians and infrastructure, including desalination plants for drinking water, while the global economy again is on alert.
The US has violated its commitments under the deal and now Iran is “no longer implementing them,” Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, told state TV.
There was no new word on mediation efforts.
US soldiers face growing risks
——————————–
The previous recorded death of a US service member was that of a helicopter pilot who crashed in the Arabian Sea earlier this month. Early in the war, an Iranian drone strike on a command center in Kuwait killed six soldiers. One soldier died after an attack on a base in Saudi Arabia. Six were killed when a refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq.
On Saturday, the most significant damage from Iranian strikes occurred in Kuwait, where a water desalination plant and an oil facility were hit, according to the Kuwait authorities and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. Both declined to provide locations.
It was the second attack against a desalination plant in two days in the tiny desert nation that depends on desalination for 90 per cent of its drinking water. The strikes injured several people at the oil facility and caused a fire at the desalination plant, forcing several power generation units offline.
Several firefighters and a worker were injured while battling two other blazes sparked by Iranian strikes, according to the Kuwait Fire Force. Kuwait briefly closed its airspace due to missile threats, and Kuwait Airways said it was rescheduling most flights to and from the capital.
Meanwhile, Iraq said it shot down attack drones over the city of Irbil. Jordan’s state-run Petra news agency said the kingdom’s air defense systems had downed Iranian missiles, while air sirens sounded multiple times in Bahrain throughout the day and in Saudi Arabia in the morning, according to their governments.
The secretary general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, accused Iran of war crimes for strikes on infrastructure and civilian facilities. (AP)
