Tehran (AFP) – Iran threatened to take a tougher line in its war with the United States on Wednesday after the heaviest exchanges in weeks left at least 19 Iranians dead, including four at a wedding—an incident slammed as a “war crime” by Tehran. A wave of Iranian attacks earlier targeted US bases in Jordan, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, after extensive US bombardment hit sites across Iran. The flare-up deepens the ongoing impasse in the war, as Iran maintains a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz oil export route and the US presses its counter-blockade of Iranian ports.
Iran reacted with fury after the Iranian Red Crescent said four people, including a child, were killed and more than 50 wounded by a US attack that hit a wedding in Iran’s south. “The truth of this unlawful war of choice—and the true face of the war crime—is in Sirik, where a wedding ceremony was brutally bombed as part of America’s desperate struggle to conceal its failure,” foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei posted on X. The US military did not address the incident directly. US Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman Tim Hawkins stated, “the US military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC,” referring to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Iran’s security chief warned that the United States would face a “new strategy” from Tehran in the six-month war. “You will soon see that Iran’s new strategy on the battlefield, in diplomacy, and in confronting the economic blockade will shatter your foundations,” Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei wrote on X.
Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, lashed out at Washington over the wedding attack, calling the United States “Satan.” “If a power acts like Satan, picks targets like Satan, and kills like Satan, it’s Satan,” he posted on X. The latest round of fighting began when Washington hit Iranian targets on Sunday, the first known strikes in several weeks. Tehran’s forces then targeted US troops in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, and projectiles struck two oil tankers in unclaimed attacks, one of which killed two Filipino sailors, according to a Saudi shipping company.
Trump stated the US strikes were “in retaliation for the Iranians’ failed attempt at adding sea mines to the Strait” and for firing missiles at the base in Jordan. More US strikes came on Tuesday, with Iranian state TV reporting explosions along the Hormuz and on an island in the Gulf, as well as an attack on an airport in the southern province of Kerman. Seven people were killed and eight others wounded in a missile attack in the southern Khuzestan province, IRNA reported. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards stated that four personnel were killed in a US strike in Kermanshah province, and three paramilitaries died on Lavan island in the Gulf. Another paramilitary was killed in the southern province of Fars, Iranian media said.
US President Donald Trump had warned of “much harder” attacks if Iran retaliated. But Tehran’s response was widespread and included attacks targeting US interests in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan and a US Marine training camp in Jordan, near the Saudi and Israeli borders, according to Iranian media. In the Gulf, air raid sirens sounded in Bahrain and Kuwait, where authorities said an Iranian drone set off a blaze at a residential complex.
Iranians expressed regret at the return to hostilities, including the deaths at the wedding. Hossein Moazami, 50, who is self-employed, called the attacks “truly distressing.” “I hope they all return to the negotiating table, because the only people suffering from this are the Iranian people,” he said. “The Americans are on the other side of the world, and nothing happens to them.” A video shared by an Iranian government account showed debris and damage at what it said was the wedding site in Sirik following the US strike, with people heard screaming in the background.
“It is a very saddening incident… Thank God the casualties were not higher,” Ali Mallahi, father of the bride and owner of the building that was hit, said in a video carried by state TV. The war began in late February with US-Israeli attacks on Iran that killed its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A fragile ceasefire collapsed after attacks on commercial ships in the Hormuz Strait, through which one-fifth of world oil supplies previously flowed. Incidents in the strait have continued. Iran’s Guards said Wednesday that two oil tankers caught fire after hitting mines due to “the urging of the US military to transit via an illegal route.”
© 2024 AFP
