The strike will degrade Iran’s ability to coordinate attacks on ships in the strait, officials said.
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.
