U.S. forces sharply ramped up their attacks against Iran this week, hitting more than 170 Iranian military targets on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Pentagon said. It was one of the most intense rounds of strikes since the war began more than four months ago.
Analysts said the Trump administration was sending a pointed message to the government in Tehran that the United States was willing to broaden its mission again and hit sites that have both military and civilian uses.
On Friday, President Trump said on social media that he had agreed to continue negotiating with Iran, but that “the Cease Fire is OVER!” It was unclear what his administration’s next steps might be.
The targets hit this week included air defense systems, drone and missile storage sites, and military speedboats along the southern coast of Iran near the Strait of Hormuz, a critical commercial shipping lane that has become a focus of recent fighting.
U.S. forces also appeared to hit a railway bridge in northeastern Iran more than 700 miles from the strait. Online video verified by The New York Times showed several people inspecting a crater at the site.
Current and former U.S. commanders and Pentagon officials said the strikes were a clear escalation as the United States and Iran appeared to edge closer to a return to full-scale war.
The attacks signaled that “Iran’s civilian infrastructure is vulnerable, and if Tehran continues to escalate, the U.S. military is capable, and willing, of targeting bridges and railways,” said Dana Stroul, the Pentagon’s top Middle East policy official in the Biden administration.
Mr. Trump made that point this week, saying that U.S. forces could target civilian infrastructure in Iran, including electricity plants and bridges, even though that could constitute war crimes.
Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for Central Command, said in a phone interview that the U.S. struck Iranian military logistics infrastructure targets like the railway bridge that were far from the strait but that enabled Iran to flow weapons, munitions and other military supplies to the most contested area of the conflict.
The U.S. attacks killed at least 14 people and injured 78 others across five provinces, according to Iran’s Health Ministry.
Iran said it had responded by firing at U.S. military bases in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. Jordan said it had also intercepted Iranian attacks.
This week’s spasm of tit-for-tat violence began after the Pentagon said Iran attacked three commercial ships, including a Saudi oil tanker and a Qatari vessel carrying liquefied natural gas. Iran has not claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Mr. Trump said on Wednesday that while the United States would probably hit Iran “hard,” he did not expect a return to all-out war. “I don’t think it’s going to start again,” he told reporters at a NATO summit in Turkey. “I think it’s going to go very quickly.”
But later in the day, he said in a social media post that if Iran attacked ships again, “it will get much worse!”
Congressional Democrats pounced on those remarks as evidence that the Trump administration has no coherent strategy to end the war.
“There has never been a true cease-fire,” Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement. “President Trump changes his mind on a daily basis, prolonging the conflict without a strategic plan to end it.”
Analysts said that the skirmishes, sandwiched between negotiations, are likely to be the new normal, as both sides struggle for control of the strait.
“The Trump team calculated that the extremely generous sanctions relief in the M.O.U. would be enough of an incentive for Iran to permit free navigation through Hormuz,” said Ms. Stroul, who is now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. She was referring to the memorandum of understanding that the United States and Iran signed last month.
“But that’s not what has happened — the Iranians have attempted to exert control and intimidate shippers into only going through the Iran-approved route,” she added.
Conversely, Ms. Stroul said, Iran has also misjudged badly. “Members of the regime underestimated Trump, and led themselves to believe that if they escalated and caused a crisis in navigation, they could extract more financial concessions from the United States,” she said. “But that’s not what is happening.”
Iran’s retaliatory strikes have not appeared to have caused major damage. Iran’s military said on Thursday that it had targeted Muwaffaq Salti Air Base — a Jordanian base also used by U.S. forces — with ballistic missiles. Jordan’s military said in a statement that it had intercepted eight missiles in its airspace and that they had not caused material damage.
Kuwait said that it had intercepted three ballistic missiles, a cruise missile and 10 drones early Thursday morning and that falling debris had injured one person and caused material damage. Bahrain’s military said it had intercepted and destroyed several drones and missiles after Iran launched attacks on Thursday.
Iran also said it had launched an attack in Qatar, a key mediator in Iran’s talks with the United States. The Qatari authorities did not confirm any strikes but issued a public security alert that it later lifted.
Reporting was contributed by Yeganeh Torbati, James McManagan, Ismaeel Naar, Euan Ward and Leily Nikounazar.
The post Two Days of U.S. Strikes in Iran Signal a Sharp Escalation appeared first on New York Times.
