THE United States intensified its strikes on Iran early Thursday, hitting targets further north as American forces also fired into a ship the US accused of trying to break its naval blockade on the Islamic Republic. Iran retaliated with missile and drone fire targeting US allies in the region before dawn and warned its attacks may escalate. Already, Iranian officials say US strikes have killed more than 35 people and wounded over 300 others. Strikes also reached into areas around Iran’s capital, Tehran, for the first time in this latest round of violence, showing a widening set of targets for the Americans. Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, threatened that Iran could launch widespread attacks on regional infrastructure if the US acts on President Donald Trump’s repeated warnings that America could hit Iranian bridges and power plants. “All the infrastructure in the region will be crushed under the steel blows of the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran” should Trump’s threat be carried out, Zolfaghari said.

 

The US strikes early Thursday hit around Tehran, state media reported. It also reported that American attacks targeted Semnan province, home to Iran’s ballistic missile production and space program. Iranian media also reported strikes Thursday morning around the provinces of Hamedan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Markazi, and Sistan and Baluchistan. Meanwhile, the US military said it opened fire on the Curacao-flagged oil tanker Belma sailing toward Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf. After the ship “ignored multiple warnings,” a US aircraft disabled the merchant vessel by firing a missile into the ship’s smokestack. Iran retaliated Thursday morning with missile and drone attacks on Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, authorities in those countries home to US forces said. There was no immediate acknowledgment of damage or casualties from the attacks. Kuwait reported a new round of incoming fire on Thursday afternoon. Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi condemned an overnight drone attack on the city of Irbil in Iraq’s semiautonomous northern Kurdish region.