Explosions heard in Iran as US announces new round of strikes: Report
Tehran, July 18
Explosions were heard in a number of Iranian provinces on Friday night as US Central Command announced the launch of a new round of strikes against Iran, Iranian media reported.
The semi-official Mehr news agency said the explosions were reported in Bushehr province as well as Hormozgan province's Sirik and Qeshm counties, with no details yet available on the targets, casualties, or damage caused.
Meanwhile, the official IRNA news agency said five blasts were heard in Iran's central Yazd province.
CENTCOM said in a post on social media platform X on Friday night that it has launched a new round of strikes against Iran for the seventh consecutive night, adding that the strikes "are designed to continue degrading Iranian military capabilities."
The strikes are intended to further degrade Iran's military capabilities, CENTCOM said.
Late Thursday, CENTCOM said U.S. forces, including fighter jets, drones and warships, had carried out precision strikes against dozens of Iranian military targets, including coastal surveillance and air defense sites, military logistics infrastructure, and maritime assets.
Among the targets struck was the surveillance tower at Chah Bahar Shahid Kalantari Port, which forms part of a maritime surveillance network along Iran's Gulf of Oman coastline.
According to CENTCOM, Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps used the tower to track and target commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) announced in a statement on Friday that its forces earlier in the day targeted a depot housing US unmanned surface vessels in Bahrain and destroyed a large number of them, Xinhua news agency reported.
Making the announcement in a statement published on its official news outlet Sepah News, the IRGC added that its retaliatory missile and drone strikes also targeted the main artificial intelligence center in Bahrain, which was used by the United States to detect targets and commit "war crimes," and completely destroyed it.
In another statement on Friday, the IRGC said its air defense forces shot down an AeroVironment RQ-11 Raven drone over Ramshir County in the southwestern Khuzestan province.
— IANS
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