US Destroyed Key Iran Surveillance Tower in Strait of Hormuz, Military Says

The U.S. military has destroyed a key Iranian surveillance tower in the Strait of Hormuz that was used to monitor ships, according to a Friday statement from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).

The Chah Bahar Shahid Kalantari Port surveillance tower was destroyed by the military on Thursday, CENTCOM said, adding it is “part of a maritime surveillance network along Iran’s Gulf of Oman coastline used for decades” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to attack ships in the strait.

“The destruction of the tower directly degrades IRGC’s ability to coordinate attacks on innocent civilian crew members,” the military command said. “Furthermore, the strike protects freedom of navigation in regional waters for all vessels, except for ships attempting to violate the ongoing U.S. naval blockade against Iran.”

An accompanying video released by CENTCOM showed what appeared to be the strike on the tower, later showing that it was mostly destroyed in the attack.

Iranian state media said Friday that at least five bridges had been struck in the south. Seven people were reported killed in attacks on bridges in the southern port of Bandar Khamir, where a ​train station was also hit. An airport was reported hit further east and away from the coast in Iranshahr, in a province bordering Pakistan.

In retaliation, Iran announced attacks on Gulf countries that host U.S. airbases, including Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait.

Authorities in Kuwait said one of the country’s power generation and water desalination stations had been hit in an Iranian attack, causing damage to ​facilities, a fire, and the disruption of a large number of electricity generation units, according to local news outlet Kuwait Times.

Iran also confirmed it fired at Syria, apparently for the first time in the war, targeting what it described as a U.S. special forces base in Tanf, state-run media IRNA said. It also launched an attack at a U.S. radar station in Oman.

A June interim deal to end the ​war collapsed on July 7 when Iran fired at commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, prompting the United States to respond with fresh airstrikes. For six consecutive days, the U.S. military has struck Iranian targets and re-imposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran has claimed that the strait is closed.

Iranian forces have been firing at ships that have attempted to sail through a U.S. Navy-supported lane of the Hormuz Strait along the southern coast near Oman. Tehran has said that it would only allow ships traveling through Tehran’s pre-approved routes.

Iran has said that it would attack civilian infrastructure across the Middle East if Trump follows through on threats to strike Iran’s infrastructure.

Trump said in a July 14 interview with Fox News that the United States would start to attack Iranian infrastructure unless Tehran returned to negotiations. Before an initial ceasefire was reached in April, Trump had issued similar language in a bid to force Iran into negotiations.

“Next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges,” Trump told Fox News this week. “We’re going to knock out all their power plants, we’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.”