Dubai, Mar. 14: President Donald Trump said the US had bombed military bases on an island vital to Iran’s oil network, but a US official said 2,500 additional Marines and an amphibious assault ship were being sent to the Middle East nearly two weeks after the war with the Islamic Republic.
Trump said US forces had destroyed targets on Iran’s Kharg Island, home to a primary terminal handling the country’s oil exports, and warned that the island’s oil infrastructure would be next.
Just a day earlier, the speaker of Iran’s parliament said such an attack would provoke a new level of retaliation. In the Iranian capital, a large explosion rocked the central square, where thousands had gathered for an annual government-organized rally to support the Palestinians and call for the destruction of Israel.
Israel had warned it would target the area in central Tehran. There were no reports of casualties. The decision to go ahead with the demonstration, which was attended by some senior government officials, and Israel’s threat to target it underscored the fierce determination of both sides in a war that has rocked the global economy and shows no sign of letting up.
Iran has continued to launch widespread missile and drone attacks on Israel and neighboring Gulf states and has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes, even as U.S. and Israeli warplanes have struck military and other targets across Iran. The humanitarian crisis in Lebanon has deepened. Israel launched a wave of airstrikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, killing nearly 800 people and displacing 850,000, and warning that there was no respite.
Earlier in the week, the Navy was operating in the Arabian Sea with 12 ships, including the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and eight destroyers. If the Tripoli joins the flotilla, it would be the second-largest ship in the region after the Lincoln.
US strikes Persian Gulf island after Iran warning. The US has struck Iran’s Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, targeting military sites, but has spared its oil infrastructure, Trump said in a social media post.
But he warned that if Iran or anyone else obstructed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, he would reconsider his decision not to wipe out oil infrastructure.