The United States and Iran exchanged strikes again on Friday, pushing oil prices higher and making it more difficult for both sides to quickly return to the fragile ceasefire arrangement signed last month.
The US Central Command stated that a new round of airstrikes began at 3 PM US Eastern Time on Friday, targeting "to degrade Iranian military capabilities." The command did not provide further details.
The week-long exchange of strikes has expanded beyond strictly military targets to include bridges, utilities, and port facilities. The US Central Command confirmed earlier that US forces destroyed a surveillance tower at Iran's Chabahar port on Thursday, describing it as part of a series of maritime outposts along the Gulf of Oman that Tehran uses to track and target commercial vessels.
Brent crude surged on Friday, rising approximately 4.6% to settle near $88 per barrel, marking its largest weekly gain since April. This followed a report by Axios, citing three US and Israeli officials, stating that the Trump administration had notified Israel it was dispatching additional aerial refueling tankers to the country, which could signal an expansion of US military operations in the coming days.
According to Iranian state media, aside from the port surveillance tower, the US also targeted six road bridges overnight. Additional reports indicated strikes on the southern Iranian city of Bushehr, home to the country's only nuclear power plant, and the western Lorestan Province. Iranian media also reported that an empty oil tanker docked at Kharg Island was struck again by the US after being targeted several days earlier.
The escalation in attacks has raised concerns that the ceasefire agreement may be beyond salvage. The agreement was originally intended to help restore normal shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and establish a mechanism to advance longer-term peace talks.
In response to the earlier US strikes, Tehran targeted US bases in Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain. These three countries have borne the brunt of Iran's retaliatory strikes since hostilities intensified earlier last week. Iran also struck the Salamah Islands in the Strait of Hormuz, which belong to Oman. According to the Tasnim news agency, Iran also targeted US radar and aircraft in Qatar, one of the key mediators between Washington and Tehran.
The Kuwaiti government reported that a desalination and power plant was attacked, damaging several power generation units.
In a televised address to the nation on Thursday evening, US President Donald Trump again portrayed the Middle East situation as a US success. "We are winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of this effort soon," he said before shifting focus to domestic issues.
Despite the escalating hostilities, the scale remains far smaller than the peak of the conflict in March and early April. At that time, the US and Israel conducted large-scale bombardments of Iranian cities, while Tehran launched thousands of drones and missiles at Gulf Arab states and Israel.
However, Mehran Kamrava, a professor of political science at Georgetown University's Qatar campus, suggested that both sides are likely to continue escalating as Iran persists with maritime attacks and insists that all vessels must obtain its permission to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
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