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Tehran, Iran – Several days of military attacks by the United States across Iran have marked the most intense rounds of bombardment since the two sides reached a vague memorandum of understanding last month.
US fighter jets and warships have hit hundreds of military targets and a number of civilian ones in nearly a week of strikes, with Iranian authorities reporting attacks in at least 10 provinces, mainly in southern Iran near the strategically important Strait of Hormuz.
In Tehran, life for more than 10 million people has carried on mostly as usual since the capital has not been recently attacked. But the economy is in the doldrums and the outlook is increasingly uncertain, more than four months after the US and Israel began their aerial campaign.
“Everything is too chaotic right now to guess what will happen next but it doesn’t look good,” Farshad, a 21-year-old resident of eastern Tehran, said on Sunday.
“I just really hope all-out war doesn’t start again because I don’t have the nerve for daily bombing on top of everything else,” he told Al Jazeera.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said overnight into Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz was once again considered closed due to US military intervention. Two vessels opting to transit using the Western-backed southern route near Oman, rather than Iran’s designated path to the north of the strait, had been struck, the IRGC added.
Iran said it had also attacked US interests across the region, including in Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar and Oman, in response to US strikes, as prospects for negotiations to replace military escalation remained slim.
Another Tehran citizen, Nastaran, said the overnight escalation felt more serious than previous attacks.
“I didn’t expect it would be this bad when I picked up my phone this morning to check the news,” she said. “I think there will be more attacks soon.”
Growing US aggression
The US military has been expanding its attacks over the past week.
US Central Command said more than 300 military targets were hit during three waves, including coastal surveillance, logistics, communications, as well as missile, drone and naval assets. It has not acknowledged striking civilian objectives.
As with other flare-ups over recent weeks, numerous attacks were launched on the province of Hormozgan, including the major port city of Bandar Abbas, as well as on Siri, Qeshm and Jask overlooking the strait. Port, fishing, coastal-control infrastructure and air defences were extensively bombed, reportedly killing a soldier and leaving multiple fishermen dead or wounded in separate strikes.
US projectiles have also targeted multiple areas in Bushehr province, with one attack impacting the perimeter of Iran’s only nuclear power plant without damaging it.
Provincial authorities in the southwestern province of Khuzestan said three areas were hit, but not the capital, Ahvaz. Local authorities in the provinces of Kohgiluyeh, Boyer-Ahmad and Lorestan also reported projectile attacks.
In Sistan and Baluchestan to the southeast, attacks were reported in Chabahar, Konarak and Iranshahr, where a strike on airport facilities killed a firefighter. Video recorded by a local from Chabahar and shared online showed the destruction of the city’s renowned maritime control tower.
Over the past week, the US military has launched some of its deepest strikes into Iranian territory since full-scale military operations were suspended by the “ceasefire” agreed in April.
One of them was in the northern province of Golestan, where the Aq Tekeh Khan railway bridge was struck on the Gorgan-Incheh Borun line.
Authorities said the bridge, which carries both passengers and cargo, was repaired and services resumed quickly. However, the attack showed that inland corridors could also become targets to increase pressure on Iran by limiting its trade, including imports of essential goods.
The transit route connects Iran to Turkmenistan and onwards to Kazakhstan, Russia, China as well as Eurasian rail networks. Crucially, during the US naval blockade of Iran’s southern ports, it provided an overland alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.
Last week, when assassinated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was being buried in his hometown of Mashhad in northeastern Iran, authorities said the US struck a bridge about 55km (34 miles) from the city, disrupting passenger journeys to the funeral procession.
Iranian authorities say electricity infrastructure – which Trump has repeatedly threatened with more strikes – has also been significantly impacted since the start of the war, worsening the long-running energy crisis.
The attacks have reduced Iran’s capacity for electricity generation by about 4,200 megawatts, just as summer temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) this week, Mohammad Allahdad, head of Tavanir, the government-owned parent company for the operation of Iran’s power grid, said on Sunday.
After the conclusion of the funeral ceremonies for Ali Khamenei, a statement from new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen public since succeeding his father, emphasised the necessity for revenge.
Similar messages continue to be broadcast by state media and hardline religion-backed factions supporting the Islamic Republic, who on Sunday also cheered the death of US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. State television hailed what it called the “dispatching to hell” of a pro-war hawkish politician.
For its part, Israel has effectively undermined the MoU signed between Iran and the US on June 17 by pushing deeper into southern Lebanon and signalling readiness to return to military strikes in Iran.
Speaking to an Israeli programme on Saturday night, Defence Minister Israel Katz, who has threatened to assassinate Mojtaba Khamenei, said “southern Lebanon would become Gaza” and that the Israeli army will “apply the Rafah model” of conquest there.
