SerpApi.Org
Donald Trump has warned Iran that for every ship it attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, US forces will blow up a bridge or power plant.
The US president said no bridges or power plants were off limits, and that Washington could target some in Tehran.
On Truth Social, Mr Trump wrote: “From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran.”
In response, Tehran threatened to strike US regional infrastructure and energy facilities.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency cited a military source saying: “If a bridge or power plant in Iran is targeted, we will strike multiple regional infrastructures and energy facilities.
“Americans must have become certain in these past 10 days that Iran targets wherever it chooses, and therefore Trump’s probable gamble will once again lead to his disgrace.”
The US president made the threat days after US forces took out at least five bridges around Bandar Abbas, a port city that is vital to the country’s trade and food.
The bombings left the city of 500,000 people – where roughly half the country’s imports arrive – almost completely isolated.
Iran responded by striking US bases in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain and a radar station in Oman.
After the collapse of their temporary peace deal, Washington and Tehran have been trading strikes for the past 11 days, threatening a return to all-out war.
Hitting bridges used by civilians once again raises questions about possible war crimes.
Tehran’s foreign ministry described the latest wave of US attacks targeting bridges as “a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and the fundamental principles of international law”.
When Mr Trump previously threatened to bomb Iran’s bridges and power plants in April, Volker Turk, the human rights chief for the UN, said: “Deliberately attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime.”
The 1949 Geneva Conventions, to which the US is a signatory, require warring parties to distinguish between military targets and civilian infrastructure, but some legal experts argue that infrastructure such as bridges can be labelled as legitimate targets if they are not used solely for civilian purposes.
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In their latest strikes, US missiles pounded southern Iran with three explosions heard near Sirik, a stretch of coast that Washington has repeatedly targeted since the fighting resumed.
Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, which the US has been trying to force open, and has vowed to widen the war to the Red Sea and paralyse global oil flow if the US continues its attacks.
On Wednesday, Iran recovered the remains of the children killed in a primary school in southern Iran on the first day of the war.
The strike, which is the single deadliest incident of the conflict, killed more than 150 people, including 120 children, on Feb 28.
After more than four months of searching through the rubble of the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in the southern city of Minab, recovery teams unearthed 68 body fragments, which DNA testing identified as belonging to 34 students.
The remains were buried together at the city’s martyrs’ cemetery.
While the White House tried to distance itself from the strike, US military investigators believe they were responsible.
