US Strikes Hit Tehran and Northern Iran as Conflict Enters Fifth Day
Iran fires on Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan as Washington expands its bombing campaign and tightens a naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz
American airstrikes expanded into northern Iran and, for the first time in this round of fighting, the capital Tehran itself, as Iran retaliated by firing on U.S. allies Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, according to the Guardian and the BBC. Explosions were reported across several Iranian cities early Thursday, marking a fifth consecutive day of American strikes.
The widening exchange raises the risk of a broader regional war involving U.S. forces and allied Gulf states, at a moment when Washington has already committed air power and naval assets to the fight. U.S. Central Command said it disabled an unladen oil tanker attempting to reach Iran's Kharg Island, firing Hellfire missiles into the vessel's smokestack after it ignored repeated warnings, part of a naval blockade President Donald Trump reinstated this week, the Guardian and the Washington Examiner reported.
Air raid sirens sounded in Bahrain and Kuwait, and Iranian state media reported explosions on Qeshm Island, in Bandar Abbas and in Chabahar, Al Jazeera reported. For a second straight day, U.S. strikes hit the southern port city of Bushehr, home to Iran's only civilian nuclear plant; local officials quoted by the state news agency IRNA said more than 30 civilians had been killed in strikes on the south of the country. An Iranian doctor told Al Jazeera that a U.S. strike had damaged a children's cancer hospital.
Amid the escalation, Trump said Iran had released an American woman, identified as Dena Karari, who had been held since December 2024, calling it "a gesture of goodwill," according to Fox News and the Washington Examiner. A former U.S. ambassador told Al Jazeera that Iran had miscalculated Trump's resolve in the standoff. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, traveled to Qatar to pay respects following the death of the country's Father Emir even as the strikes continued, Al Jazeera reported.
Trump has threatened to strike Iran's power plants if Tehran does not back down over the strait, the Guardian reported, underscoring how quickly the conflict could still widen.
— Compiled from reporting by the Guardian, the BBC, Al Jazeera, Fox News and the Washington Examiner.