DUBAI, July 9 (Reuters) – Iranian armed forces launched attacks on U.S. military infrastructure in neighbouring Gulf states on Thursday following U.S. strikes on Iran’s southern coastal and eastern provinces, putting further strain on a three-week-old ceasefire agreement.
Iran was also preparing on Thursday to bury its slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the country’s holiest shrine in Mashhad, in the northeast, the culmination of a week of mass funeral processions and rallies. Khamenei was killed in a U.S. airstrike on the first day of the war on February 28.
Oil prices, which had spiked amid concerns over the impact of the renewed attacks on global supplies, fell back on Thursday as investors weighed whether the flare-up was tactical and temporary or might augur a complete collapse in the ceasefire.
The U.S. military said on Wednesday its latest strikes on Iran were aimed at keeping the Strait of Hormuz open after it said Iranian forces had struck three tankers in the area. The assault came hours after U.S. President Donald Trump said he believed the interim ceasefire with Iran to be “over”.
Iranian officials said the U.S. attacks had killed 14 people and injured 78 across five provinces on July 8 and 9, state media reported. Fars said one U.S. strike had hit a rail bridge used for trade with Russia and China.
Several explosions were heard on Thursday morning in Iran’s Bushehr province and in Bandar Abbas, a port city on the Strait of Hormuz on Iran’s south coast, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
Bushehr is home to a Russian-built nuclear power plant and a local official later told state media that a U.S. projectile had hit the perimeter area of the facility. The perimeter was already hit several times during the current conflict before an April 8 ceasefire.
U.S. strikes also hit a military site and a fishing dock in Bushehr province, its deputy governor said, though no casualties were reported.
