- Iran says oil and energy infrastructure belonging to firms that cooperated with the United States would “immediately be destroyed and turned into a pile of ashes”
President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States had heavily bombed military targets on Iran’s oil hub Kharg Island and the US Navy would soon begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
Kharg Island, located around 30 kilometers (19 miles) off the Iranian mainland, handles roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports, according to a recent JP Morgan note.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said military targets on Kharg Island, which handles almost all of Iran’s crude exports, had been “totally obliterated” in “one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East.”
He said he had chosen not to target oil infrastructure on the island for now.
“However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” the US president said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s armed forces threatened on Saturday to destroy US-linked oil infrastructure.
The military’s al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said in a statement cited by Iranian media that oil and energy infrastructure belonging to firms that cooperated with the United States would “immediately be destroyed and turned into a pile of ashes” if Iran’s energy facilities were attacked.
The announcement, reported by Iran’s Fars and Tasnim news agencies, was in “response to statements” made by the US president who had earlier said in a social media post that strikes had “obliterated” military targets on Kharg Island.
Iranian strikes have all but halted maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, leaving investors and governments globally nervous about the risk of dwindling energy supply and higher inflation.
Written with agency reports
