US Strikes Iran for 11th Night as Trump Threatens Underground Nuclear Site

The United States launched strikes on Iran for the 11th consecutive night late on Tuesday, as Tehran warned Washington against targeting its nuclear facilities.

US Central Command said the wave of strikes was "designed to continue degrading Iran's ability to threaten commercial shipping" in the Strait of Hormuz. It said forces had targeted Iranian military operations centres, maritime capabilities, aircraft hangars, drone storage facilities and military logistics infrastructure.

Iranian state media reported that air defences were activated over Tehran. Explosions were also reported in the north-western city of Tabriz, the south-eastern ports of Chabahar and Konarak, and in the southern city of Bushehr, home to Iran's only nuclear power plant.

Centcom accused Iran of attacking "more than 30 commercial vessels" passing through the Strait of Hormuz over the past three months. "The unwarranted attacks have endangered hundreds of innocent mariners and undermined freedom of navigation," it said, adding that the waterway remained "open for commercial vessel transit" — a characterisation at odds with the near-halt in Gulf oil flows reported by shippers.

The sharpest escalation, however, came from Washington rather than the battlefield. Donald Trump said the next military target could be Pickaxe Mountain, an underground complex near Natanz where Iran is suspected of building an undeclared enrichment facility.

"We'll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily," Trump said, addressing reporters during a White House meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun. He added that he would not normally announce a target in advance, but "there's not a thing they can do about it".

Iran's Khatam Al-Anbiya military command responded that it would treat such an attack "as an expansion of war in the region", threatening strikes on "all the interests of America, the allies and supporters", according to the state broadcaster IRIB.

The threat is not confined to Iranian and American forces. Kuwait's army said early on Wednesday that its air defences were engaging drone attacks from Iran, while Bahrain and Jordan said they had also intercepted drone and missile strikes — drawing states that have publicly sought to stay out of the conflict into its direct line of fire.

Trump also threatened to "take care of" the Houthis if the Iran-backed group in Yemen followed through on its threatened blockade of Saudi ports. A Houthi media official had earlier said they were closing the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea's southern gateway, to Saudi vessels.

That matters because the Red Sea has become the critical route for Saudi oil exports during the war, with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed. Following the Houthi announcement, two tankers that had just loaded Saudi crude bound for China and India at the Red Sea port of Yanbu made U-turns on Tuesday and headed instead towards the Suez Canal, according to the British maritime risk group Vanguard.

Iran and the US agreed a ceasefire in April. Hostilities resumed last week as the two sides battled for control of the Hormuz waterway.

Reported from the BBC.