Tehran, July 16:
The US reimposed a naval blockade on Iran and intensified its airstrike campaign Wednesday in retaliation for Tehran’s attacks on ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The American strikes hit an Iranian army barracks, killing at least seven troops and wounding more than 260 people across the country, Iranian officials said.
Days of back-and-forth strikes by the US and Iran across the Middle East – and renewed threats to the waterway crucial to global energy supplies – have shredded the interim deal to end the conflict, and the region could tip back into all-out war.
The US first imposed a blockade in April and then lifted it last month after signing the interim deal that paused the fighting and set a 60-day period for negotiations over issues such as Iran’s nuclear program. Those talks have stalled as fighting over the Strait of Hormuz has intensified.
When the US and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran effectively closed the waterway to shipping traffic – a move that sent the price of oil, fertiliser, and many other goods soaring far beyond the region and gave Iran major leverage in negotiations.
Those rising prices pose a particular challenge to US President Donald Trump and his Republican Party, which hopes to retain control of Congress in elections in November. But Washington has struggled to successfully reopen the waterway.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened on Wednesday to halt all energy exports from the Middle East over the blockade. “The export of oil and gas from the region will be either for everyone or for no one,” it said.
The IRGC said that it conducted retaliatory strikes against the US military facilities in Bahrain and Jordan, attacking their military infrastructure, aircraft shelters, key command centres and strategic drones, local media reported.
In a statement, the IRGC said its Aerospace Force targetted the US military base at al-Azraq in Jordan in response to renewed US aggression against Iran. The attack destroyed shelters which have US F-15, F-16, and F-35 fighter jets, and several MQ-9 strategic drones stationed at the base, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.
The IRGC claimed that a significant amount of US military attacks against Iran were conducted from American bases in Jordan. It urged people of Jordan to end the presence of US forces in their country and prevent its territory from being used as a launchpad for attacks against Islamic nations and the Palestinian people. The IRGC also urged Jordanians to take up every opportunity to “destroy American institutions and expel the occupying US army from Jordan.”
In a separate statement, the IRGC said its navy attacked the US Fifth Fleet’s facilities in Bahrain, targetting the NSI management centre, large warehouses sheltering military parts and equipment, the command and control centre, and fuel storage facilities.