The US military said on Saturday it had taken out an Iranian bunker housing weapons that threatened oil and gas shipments in the Strait of Hormuz, as thousands of Iranians marked Eid al-Fitr with prayers.
The US statement appeared designed to calm the concerns of energy markets and Washington’s skeptical international allies, more than 20 of which issued a statement pledging to support efforts to reopen the main shipping lane.
Admiral Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command, said US warplanes had dropped 5,000-pound bombs on an underground facility off Iran’s coast that stored anti-ship cruise missiles, mobile launchers and other equipment.
“We not only took out the facility, but also destroyed intelligence support sites and missile radar relays that were used to monitor the ships’ movements,” Cooper said in a video statement, revealing details of an attack first reported on Tuesday.
A statement from the leaders of mainly European countries, including the UK, France, Italy and Germany, but also South Korea, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, condemned the “de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces”.
“We express our willingness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait. We welcome the commitment of nations that are engaging in advance planning,” they said.
As consumers count the cost of attacks on energy facilities in the Persian Gulf, including the world’s largest gas hub, US President Donald Trump has slammed NATO allies as “cowards” and urged them to secure the strait.
Iran has blocked the canal, through which about a fifth of the world’s peacetime crude oil and liquid natural gas passes.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran had imposed restrictions only on ships from countries involved in attacks against Iran and would offer assistance to others that stayed out of the conflict.
Iran also denies claims – cited in the 20-nation joint statement – that it has laid mines in the canal.
Outstanding durability?
The event has sent crude oil prices soaring, with a barrel of North Sea Brent crude up more than 50 percent over the past month and now more than $105.
Meanwhile, analysts say Iran’s Islamic government has survived the loss of its top leaders and that its offensive capacity is proving more resilient than expected, with drones, missiles and launchers looking capable of continuing retaliatory strikes for another four to six weeks.
“They’re showing a lot of resilience that we probably didn’t expect, that the US didn’t expect, when they undertook this,” Neil Quilliam of Chatham House told the London-based think tank’s podcast.
“But the IRGC, the Iranian regime, is deep, has these roots, this institutional strength … it’s quite remarkable how they’ve managed to endure.”
Meanwhile, Tehran marked the end of Ramadan as the war entered its fourth week.
Iran’s supreme leader traditionally leads Eid al-Fitr prayers, but Mojtaba Khamenei, who came to power earlier this month after his father was killed in US-Israeli strikes, has remained out of the public eye.
Instead, the head of the judiciary, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, attended prayers at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in central Tehran, which was overcrowded, with worshipers spilling onto the streets outside.
The previous evening, airstrikes had darkened the mood as the city celebrated Nowruz, the Persian New Year.
“The atmosphere of the New Year was spreading in the city. Places like Tajrish or Golestan Shahrak, where I went, were full of well-dressed and beautiful women buying flowers,” said Farid, an advertising executive, reached by AFP via an online message.
“The Israeli attacks that happened just in time for the New Year were deeply disturbing. The thought that some people could die right at the New Year’s dinner table was painful.”
Iran’s ally Russian President Vladimir Putin sent greetings to Khamenei, saying he “wished the Iranian people strength to overcome these difficult trials and stressed that during this difficult time, Moscow remained a loyal friend.”
Nuclear power plant
According to Iran’s atomic energy organization, the US and Israel targeted a plant in Natanz in Isfahan province, which houses underground centrifuges for enriching uranium for Iran’s controversial nuclear program and was already damaged in last June’s war.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, called for “military restraint to avoid any risk of a nuclear accident”, but the UN watchdog confirmed that no increase in radiation levels had been reported abroad.
Asked about Natanz, the Israeli military said it was “not aware of an attack”.
Iran launched what a UK official told AFP was an “unsuccessful” ballistic missile attack on a UK and US military base on Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean about 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from Iran.
If the strike had hit its target, it would have been Iran’s long-range attack. Before the war, according to the US Congressional Research Service, Washington was aware of Iranian missiles that could reach 3,000 kilometers.
Iran has “always had missiles of that kind of range that we’ve known about, maybe not declared,” former UK Royal Navy commander and defense expert Tom Sharpe told AFP.
The attack “shows that they can still move these mobile launchers, undetected, spin and fire without being hit,” Sharpe said, adding, however, that these would not be a “game changer.”
On Friday, the UK government said it would allow Washington to use its bases in Diego Garcia and Fairford in England to target “Iranian missile sites and capabilities used to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz”.
The UK official confirmed that the attempted missile attack took place before this announcement.
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