US strikes in Iran hit airport, bridges and railway station

TEHRAN: Deadly US strikes overnight hit an airport, a railway station in the port city of Bandar Abbas and two bridges in southern Iran near the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian state media said Friday (Jul 17).

"Three explosions were heard around the airport and at least one American enemy projectile hit Iranshahr airport," in the southeast, state television IRIB said on Telegram.

"A few minutes ago, the Bandar Abbas Railway Junction Station was targeted by the American enemy. According to this report, two Iranians were injured in the attack," Mehr said on Telegram.

Bandar Abbas is home to Iran's largest port and key navy and Revolutionary Guards facilities - both on the Strait of Hormuz.

An official report spoke of airstrikes on two bridges Hormozgan Province and cited IRNA as saying that two people had died and four were injured.

The US and Iran exchanged intensifying fire on Thursday in a week-long escalation that has largely unravelled last month's truce.

The US military said it launched a sixth night of consecutive strikes on Iran on Thursday "to further degrade Iranian military capabilities".

For the first time since a memorandum of understanding paused fighting last month, two big waves of US air strikes hit Iran in a single day on Wednesday, mostly aimed at its southern coast.

Tehran has countered with missiles and drones targeted at US military bases in neighbouring states including a recently expanded air base in Jordan that Iran said was used in a US attack on an Iranian children's cancer hospital on Wednesday night.

Iran has also largely halted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz after the re-escalation of attacks.

Tehran resumed its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and Washington again blockaded Iranian ports from Wednesday.

Iran has signalled it could prod its Houthi allies in Yemen to close another key strait: the Bab al-Mandeb at the mouth of the Red Sea, sources told Reuters, if Washington attacks Iran's infrastructure. Iran last week hit ships moving through a corridor in the strait.

Yet even as the attacks escalated, Trump on Wednesday welcomed what he described as the release of a US citizen detained in Iran, identified by a human rights lawyer as Dena Karari, calling it a gesture of goodwill by Tehran.

On Thursday, however, Iran's judiciary challenged that account, saying no American prisoner had been released or exchanged from Iranian prisons, according to state media.