US strikes Kharg Island again, a critical oil hub for Iran
The US again struck the Iranian oil hub of Kharg Island, according to a White House official who was not authorised to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The US hit military targets on the island, the official said Tuesday. The strikes came hours ahead of a deadline President Donald Trump set for Iran to capitulate to his demands or face a major attack. He said on Tuesday morning that “whole civilisation will die tonight” if Iran did not make a deal.
Trump has threatened to deploy ground troops to seize critical oil infrastructure on the island, but experts warn such an operation would cost the lives of many US military members and would not be a decisive move to ending the war.
The US had earlier in the war struck several targets on the island, including air defences, a radar site, an airport and a hovercraft base, according to satellite analysis by the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project.
Earlier Tuesday, the semiofficial Mehr news agency put out a report saying there had been several explosions on Kharg Island, without elaborating.
Saudi intercepts missile attacks
Saudi Arabia said early Tuesday that seven ballistic missiles from Iran targeted the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province, with “debris from the missiles” crashing into the ground near energy facilities.
The brief statement from Major General Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi military, did not elaborate on the extent of the damage on the ground, though he said an “assessment is underway.” It wasn’t immediately clear what energies facilities had been impacted.
