US Strikes Iran Railway Bridges En Route to Khamenei Burial as Truce Unravels

Iran accused the US of striking railway bridges en route to the holy city where slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was buried as a fragile truce between the two countries unravelled.

“Iran condemns fresh US attacks on southern provinces, bridges The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Thursday condemned the latest US strikes against several regions in Iran's southern coastal provinces and two bridges in the country's northeastern provinces”

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Huge crowds gathered in Mashhad, northeast Iran, as Khamenei was killed in a US/Israeli airstrike on 28 February and his burial came as Iran and the US traded strikes for a second day on Wednesday.

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Iran’s deputy governor of Bushehr, Ehsan Jahanian, told Iranian state media that the perimeter of the Russian-built plant had been struck during fresh attacks across the southern coastal province, with several explosions reported in Bushehr and in Bandar Abbas.

Iran’s foreign ministry said the strikes showed Trump’s “inability to comprehend the depth of Iranians’ patriotism and loyalty to the revolution’s ideals,” while the US Central Command said its forces had struck around 90 Iranian military targets as punishment for “recent unjustified aggression” on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

The US president, Donald Trump, declared the memorandum of understanding was “over,” while a senior American official told Axios that the current escalation could last a matter of days, a week or a month depending on whether Iran continued to attack vessels in the strait.

Iran said US forces struck an area near a nuclear power plant on Thursday and reported passenger trains from Tehran to Mashhad were disrupted on Thursday morning due to US strikes, with one attack hitting a bridge 55km (34 miles) from the holy city.

Iran’s foreign ministry denounced the latest US strikes as a “grave war crime,” describing the US administration as “evil and psychopathic,” and said the strikes targeted several locations in the country’s southern coastal provinces as well as two railway bridges in the eastern provinces on the railway route to Mashhad.

Al Jazeera

The BBC reported that Iran said 14 people have been killed in the past two days, while Iran’s health ministry figures cited by the BBC also included 78 injured, with 47 remaining in hospital.

Al Jazeera said at least 14 people had been killed in the two days of attacks, including at least one member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and quoted a professor of politics at the University of Bradford, Alam Saleh, saying, “Bombing is not working.”

The BBC also reported that the IRGC confirmed it launched retaliatory strikes on US military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain overnight, calling them the “first phase of the punitive response against the American treaty-breakers”.

As the conflict centered on the Strait of Hormuz, the BBC reported a “dramatic” drop in the number of ships travelling through the strait, and Phil Belcher of Intertanko said the number of ships travelling via the southern route was now in “single figures.”

The BBC said the daily figure of about 30 ships was down from about 70 a week ago and well below the normal number of 130 ships seen before the Iran war began earlier this year, while the US Central Command said the latest strikes were carried out to “further degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping and innocent civilian mariners.”

In Iran, the BBC reported that huge crowds gathered for the burial of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after six days of funeral events, and that Iran’s foreign ministry said the strikes showed Trump’s “inability to comprehend the depth of Iranians’ patriotism and loyalty to the revolution’s ideals.”

The Guardian reported that Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said his country was prepared to resume its military campaign against Iran if needed, threatening to do so “with even greater force,” as sirens sounded at least three times in Bahrain where the US navy’s fifth fleet is headquartered.

The Guardian also reported that the US president posted videos of explosions in Iran and threatened the country once again, writing on Truth Social: “This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!”