Tehran has said it is ready to “welcome” an American ground invasion, as US Central Command (Centcom) reports its ninth consecutive night of strikes on Iran after the deaths of American soldiers in Jordan and Iraq over the weekend.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said that the country’s leadership is “counting down the minutes to welcome” US forces in any ground invasion.
He added that the text of the Pakistan-brokered interim deal signed with the US in June is “completely clear”, and that there is “no excuse” for Washington to violate the treaty.
In the early hours of Monday morning, the US military claimed in a post on X that its attacks hit “Iranian military command centres, air defence and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and communications networks”.
It added that the fresh onslaught aims to “further diminish Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz”.
US President Donald Trump said the latest round of “very hard” attacks came in “honour” of three American service members who had been killed over recent days.
“We hit them very hard again tonight, and we did that in honour of the, probably three, it’s probably three great patriots,” he told reporters.
He claimed that Iran has “been very, very badly damaged. They’ve lost everything almost – militarily”.
“They’ve got some missiles, some drones, some manufacturing ability, not much.”
When asked about the military fatalities, Trump responded that “we feel very badly”, adding that those who died were fighting so that Tehran “cannot have a nuclear weapon”.
Centcom said an American soldier had been killed in northern Iraq on Saturday in a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a “downed Iranian one-way attack drone”.
At least another two US service members were killed after an Iranian attack on a US base in Jordan on Friday. US officials confirmed on Monday that Lt Tyler James Feehan, 25, from Hawaii, and Pte Isabella Gonzales, 19, from Texas, were killed after “an enemy attack on 17 July at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base”.
Shortly after the CENTCOM announcement, Iranian state media reported blasts across the country, including the southern cities of Bandar Mahshahr, Bandar Imam Khomeini and Chabahar as well as the northwestern city of Tabriz.
According to Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency, one person was killed, and several others wounded southwest of Tabriz.
Later on Monday, Iranian state news media reported strikes targeting several locations in the southern port city of Bushehr, home to the country’s civilian nuclear plant, state news media reported.
“A few minutes ago, several locations in Bushehr city were hit by American enemy projectiles,” said Bushehr governor Mohammad Mozaffari, adding that the scope and extent of the strikes are under investigation.
Meanwhile, Tehran has called on the International Atomic Energy Agency to condemn a US attack on its Darkhovin nuclear plant, which is still under construction in the country’s southwest on Sunday.
Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation denounced the attack as “a clear violation of international law”.
‘A surprise attack’
Tehran has responded with a slew of attacks on its US-allied regional neighbours, including Jordan, Kuwait and Syria.
In Jordan, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed attacks targeting US C-17 transport planes and a P-8 aircraft at Aqaba airport.
According to the statement, the US aircraft “were targeted with ballistic missiles, causing severe damage to a number of them”.
The IRGC also said that it targeted 20 shelters where US forces were stationed in the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, “killing dozens of American terrorist forces”.
Anonymous US officials told the New York Times that, prior to the air base strike, dozens more US military personnel were wounded and helicopters damaged during three Iranian attacks in Jordan last week.
In Kuwait, the force claimed strikes on US military facilities at the Ali Al Salem base, an aviation equipment warehouse and a hangar housing US MQ-9 drones, which set several aircraft ablaze.
Kuwait’s government said on Sunday that a desalination plant had been struck for the second day running, condemning it as a direct attack on vital civilian infrastructure.
The Kuwaiti Army reported in a post on X that its air defences had been activated in response to Iranian attacks, confirming that “any explosions that may be heard are the result of air defence systems intercepting hostile targets”, and urging the public to adhere to security and safety instructions.
The IRGC also announced a “surprise attack” on a command centre in Syria’s al-Tanf. In a statement carried by state news agency IRNA, they said that the assault was carried out as “revenge for the blood of martyred soldiers” killed in Iran’s southeastern city of Iranshahr.
In Bahrain’s Manama, sirens blared amid reports of explosions heard in the capital, as the country’s state television reported that its air defence systems are responding to attacks from Iran.
‘Not a single drop of oil and gas’
As the ceasefire agreement unravels, the struggle for control over the vital shipping channel the Strait of Hormuz continues, sending oil prices soaring over the weekend.
The IRGC has vowed that “not a single drop” of oil will transit the waterway if US attacks continue, and that Washington should prepare for a “punitive operation”.
It reported that “two offending oil tankers” attempting to cross an “unsafe shipping lane” south of the Strait “exploded” and were “forced to cease movement”. It added that the vessels were trying to use the route under “pressure and coercion” from the US military.
“This is our land, and the intervention of the American terrorist army from thousands of kilometres away has no legal basis and will be dealt with with certainty,” it said in a statement.
“As long as America’s evil deeds continue in the region, this passage will not be safe for the passage of chemical fertilisers or even a single drop of oil and gas.”
Earlier, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported that a ship caught fire eight nautical miles north-west of Oman’s Kumzar. According to UKMTO, it received information from “military authorities that a vessel is on fire”, adding that the cause has yet to be verified.
According to shipping data, traffic across the Strait dropped over the weekend amid the attacks, with four ships making the crossing on Sunday, down from eight the previous day.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Iran of using the Strait of Hormuz as leverage amid the ongoing conflict in the region, calling on other countries to “step up” to protect global shipping. Despite ongoing exchange of attacks, Rubio said that the US remains “open to a diplomatic solution with Iran”.
After rising steeply in the wake of renewed hostilities, oil prices fell back below $90 a barrel on Monday after Baghaei told reporters in Tehran that diplomatic exchanges with the US via mediators are ongoing.
“We have been informed by mediators, we have received messages – without going into details – but the main point is that the diplomatic apparatus has been active in recent days and ideas have been conveyed to us by certain mediators,” he said.
Source: MEE
