US expands airstrike targets

Iran strikes back, issues sweeping warning

Smoke rises after Israeli forces seized and demolished the village of Deir Sirian in southern Lebanon. [AFP]
Smoke rises after Israeli forces seized and demolished the village of Deir Sirian in southern Lebanon. [AFP]

The United States has sharply expanded its airstrike campaign against Iran, pushing beyond the country's southern coast to target areas on the outskirts of Tehran and deep into the interior — prompting Iran to launch retaliatory strikes against US military bases in neighboring countries and issue a sweeping threat to destroy all infrastructure across the region.

Yonhap cited Iran's state news agency IRNA and other local media as reporting that powerful explosions were heard in the early hours of Thursday across multiple inland locations, including Khorramabad in Lorestan Province in west-central Iran, Khondab in Markazi Province and areas in northern Semnan Province.

Those cities are home to clusters of facilities linked to Iran's ballistic missile production and space programs. Local officials attributed the blasts to US strikes, and an official in Semnan Province confirmed that "Semnan Province airport was attacked by the United States."

Around the same time, air defenses were activated on the outskirts of Tehran and in Parchin, about 30 kilometers southeast of the capital. Parchin is a key military site suspected of housing missile development and production facilities as well as nuclear installations. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said, however, that Parchin had not been struck and that the air defense activation was a readiness check.

Taken together, Iranian media reports suggest that while US forces had previously confined their strikes to Iran's southern and southwestern coastline near the Strait of Hormuz, the campaign may have extended to targets in the Iranian interior.

Alongside the airstrikes, US forces tightened a maritime blockade. American aircraft fired on the Belma, a Curaçao-flagged oil tanker bound for Kharg Island — Iran's main crude oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf. After the vessel ignored warnings and continued sailing, a US military aircraft fired a missile into the ship's smokestack, completely disabling it.

Iran responded to the US pressure with immediate military retaliation and a series of escalating warnings. In the early hours of Thursday, Iran launched missile and drone strikes targeting US military installations in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait.

Iran's military also countered President Donald Trump's threat to strike Iranian bridges and power plants, warning that it would attack all infrastructure across the Middle East.

Iranian military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Mohammad Akraminia said in a statement Thursday that "the only way to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is for the United States to comply with the 14-point end-of-war MOU and implement Iran's regulations governing vessel passage through the strait."

He added that if Trump followed through on his threat to strike Iranian infrastructure, "the Iranian military will target all remaining infrastructure in the region," warning that "a far harsher, broader and more destructive response than previous attacks will follow."


woo@heraldcorp.com