Tehran: The US-Iran war is well and truly back in full swing, after weeks of relative calm designed by a fragile ceasefire.
After strikes and counter strikes over the last couple of days, Donald Trump added fuel to the fire on Thursday, saying that the United States will hit Iran “very hard tonight”, and in the near future target Kharg Island and take control of oil and gas markets.
“The United States will be hitting Iran (Whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti Aircraft, and all other forms of Defence, together with most of its offensive capability, are GONE!), VERY HARD TONIGHT. At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
A tense ceasefire, nearly two months old, lay in tatters with the Iranian Foreign ministry declaring that Washington’s military actions have rendered the hard-fought truce “practically meaningless.”
Two days ago, the US President vowed to respond after Iran shot down an Apache helicopter.
Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority has reportedly instructed vessels which have already received transit permits to be patient, and said that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until further notice, according to Iranian state media.
Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesperson for Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, said the US, not Iran, will ultimately have to yield.
“It is undoubtedly America that must surrender in this battle,” Rezaei said.
“Trump has no more than two paths: either he must surrender, or he must surrender,” he said in a post on X.
Iran’s Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned that “wrong strategies and impulsive decisions” will “reset the entire board for the worse”, cautioning against actions that could further escalate tensions.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran said on Thursday that it had carried out retaliatory strikes against 18 American military sites located at airbases in Kuwait and Bahrain after US military said it conducted strikes on several targets in Iran for a second consecutive day.
“CENTCOM forces launched strikes on Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems, and air defence sites across Iran,” CENTCOM said in a post on X.