(July 18): The US and Iran traded attacks again on Friday, pressuring oil prices and making a quick return to the fragile ceasefire deal signed last month even less likely.
US Central Command (Centcom) said a new round of air strikes were underway beginning at 3pm ET on Friday with the goal of “degrading Iranian military capabilities”. No other details were provided.
A week of back-and-forth strikes by both sides has expanded beyond strictly military targets to include bridges, utilities and port facilities. Centcom earlier confirmed that it had destroyed a surveillance tower at the Iranian port of Chabahar on Thursday, saying it was part of a string of maritime outposts along the Gulf of Oman that Tehran used to track and target commercial vessels.
Brent crude surged on Friday, rising about 4.6% to settle around US$88 and notching its biggest weekly advance since April. That followed an Axios report that the Trump administration notified Israel it is sending more refuelling planes to the country, a possible signal that US military operations could expand in the coming days. The outlet cited talks with three US and Israeli officials.
Beyond the port tower, the US struck six road bridges overnight, according to Iranian state media. There were separate reports of attacks on the southern town of Bushehr, which houses the country’s only nuclear power plant, and the western province of Lorestan. And an empty oil tanker docked at Kharg Island was struck by the US again after being targeted days earlier, Iranian media reported.
The escalation has prompted concerns that the ceasefire agreement, meant to help re-establish regular shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and establish a process for longer-term peace talks, can no longer be salvaged.
See also: US blockade forcing Iran’s energy tankers to zig-zag and U-turn
Tehran has responded to US attacks by targeting American bases in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain — the three countries that have borne the brunt of the Islamic Republic’s counterstrikes since fighting picked up early last week — and on Oman’s As Salamah Archipelago, which sits on the strait. An attack in Jordan resulted in injuries to several US military personnel, CBS News reported, citing unnamed officials.
Centcom did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Friday night.
See also: US, Iran step up attacks as fears grow of return to full war
Iran also struck at US radar and aircraft in Qatar, one of the main mediators between Washington and Tehran, according to the Tasnim news agency. And it launched a ballistic missile at an American military base in Saudi Arabia, Axios reported on Friday, a move that would represent a regional escalation as the Iran had largely avoided targeting Saudi sites in recent months.
In Kuwait, the government reported strikes on a water desalination and electricity plant, with many power-generation units sustaining damage.
Addressing the nation on Thursday night, US President Donald Trump again painted the situation in the Mideast as a success. The US is “winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labour very, very shortly”, he said before turning his attention towards domestic issues.
China and Pakistan expressed concern over the developments, calling on both the US and Iran to cease hostilities and resume dialogue.
The worsening hostilities are still far from the scale seen at the height of the war in March and early April. Then, the US and Israel were bombarding Iranian cities on a mass scale and Tehran was firing thousands of drones and missiles at Gulf Arab states and Israel.
Yet with Iran continuing maritime attacks and insisting that all ships seek its permission before sailing through the strait, there’s a good chance both sides continue to escalate, according to Mehran Kamrava, a professor of political science at Georgetown University’s campus in Qatar.
The attacks are “an ominous sign of more to come, worse to come”, Kamrava told Bloomberg TV on Friday from Doha. “Neither side wants to see this escalation but both have become dependent on the path of an escalatory cycle from which they cannot back out. This tit-for-tat is now very dangerous in the sense of attacks and counter attacks on critical infrastructure.”
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Beyond bombing Iran more often, the US is again blockading its ports and has scrapped a waiver for sanctions on its oil exports.
“Iran and the US are now locked in an escalation spiral, with neither side willing to back down,” said Bloomberg Economics analysts Becca Wasser and Dina Esfandiary. “The war has been costly for Tehran. But its leverage in the strait is valuable — too valuable to give up.”
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