The United States military launched strikes on Iran for the seventh consecutive night Friday, targeting what the Pentagon described as Iranian military capabilities, as fears grew that the conflict could spiral beyond containment.
US Central Command posted on X that strikes began at 19:00 GMT and were "designed to continue degrading Iranian military capabilities at the Commander in Chief's direction." Five explosions were reported in the early hours of Saturday in Yazd, in central Iran, according to Iranian state news agency IRNA. Three more blasts were reported in the southern city of Sirik, and another news agency, Mehr, said explosions were heard "in several provinces in the south."
Iran accuses Washington of targeting civilian infrastructure and committing war crimes. Footage and images from Iranian state media show heavily damaged bridges and railway lines in the country's south.
According to Al Jazeera, US attacks overnight Thursday into Friday killed eight people in Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responded by launching attacks against US military assets in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Jordan and Syria. The IRGC said it struck a depot housing US unmanned aerial vehicles in Bahrain late Friday. Washington has not confirmed that attack.
Kuwait announced Friday that Iran had struck a power and water plant in the country, damaging infrastructure there. Iran has warned it would retaliate against US strikes by targeting civilian infrastructure across the Gulf region.
The most direct warning came from Major-General Mohsen Rezaei, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader. He said Friday that Tehran will move beyond military deterrence and enter the phase of "offence and complete destruction" if US attacks do not stop. Tehran is ready to resume "full-scale offensive operations" if strikes continue, he said, according to Iranian news agency IRIB.
"Iran will no longer limit itself to retaliatory, like-for-like responses … and no political border will be safe," Rezaei said.
Rezaei also said Washington's strategy of "war and negotiation" had reached a dead end and that the intensity of Iranian attacks would increase in the coming days.
The strikes come alongside a separate development on the diplomatic and economic front. Iraq, which borders Iran and depends on the Strait of Hormuz for oil exports, signed preliminary agreements worth more than $60 billion with US firms at a business summit in Washington on Friday, Reuters reported. Among the deals, Iraq and Syria agreed to reconstruct the long-defunct Iraq-Syria crude oil pipeline, which runs from the Kirkuk region to Syria's Mediterranean port of Baniyas. US energy company Chevron would carry out the project under the agreement, Iraq's state news agency reported.
US ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack said the pipeline agreements would lead to a program "that will make the Strait of Hormuz an afterthought," a reference to the disruption in the strait caused by the ongoing US-Israel conflict with Iran. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said at the Washington summit, "We are using an open-door policy. Everybody who has a project can come and talk to us. We will not make it difficult for anyone."
Iraq also signed an agreement with Starlink, owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX, to operate formally in the country, according to Iraqi state media.
