The US will bomb Iran for the ninth night in a row as the Hormuz conflict escalates | US-Israel War on Iran News

Iranian media reports of explosions in cities far north and south, including Tabriz and Chabahar.

The United States has launched protests in Iran for the ninth night in a row, with Iranian media reporting explosions in several cities, including Sirik, Jask, Tabriz and Chabahar.

This happened on Monday when the US military announced the death of the third soldier in recent days and as last month’s cease-fire agreement between Tehran and Washington collapsed amid a fight for control of the Strait of Hormuz.

In a statement, the US military said the latest strikes were aimed at “degrading Iranian weapons used to attack commercial and naval vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz”.

Iran’s IRIB news agency said several explosions were heard in the cities of Mahshahr and Imam Khomeini, in southwestern Khuzestan. It also reported other explosions near the cities of Sirik and Jask in Hormozgan province on Iran’s southern coast, and near the city of Khvormuj in Bushehr province.

Three explosions were also heard near the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz, IRIB added, while air defenses were launched in the southeastern cities of Konarak and Chabahar in the Sistan and Baluchestan provinces, according to the Fars news agency.

Tehran vows to retaliate

Al Jazeera Tohid Asadi, reporting from Iran’s capital, Tehran, said the latest US strikes also targeted Iran’s southern coast. He said the explosion in Tabriz, if confirmed, would be the first time the northwestern city has been attacked since the recent escalation began.

“We have another bonfire night,” he said. “The Iranian side is also talking about retaliation, with Iranian media reporting new missiles from the Lorestan region targeting US military bases across the region.”

Earlier, Kuwait said it was facing “brutal drone attacks”, while airstrikes sirens sounded in Bahrain for the second time on Sunday. Sirens also sounded in Jordan, where the military said it shot down three Iranian missiles. The Kuwaiti government said a desalination plant was attacked for the second day running on Sunday, which caused a fire, which is said to be a direct attack on the needs of civilians.

Iran and the U.S. have also taken aim at shipping, with Washington saying it is enforcing a naval blockade of Iranian ports, and Tehran saying it is targeting ships that violate its transit laws in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Sunday that four ships attempted to pass through the strait through an “unsafe route” with US support after ignoring IRGC warnings. It said two had abandoned the experiment, while the other two had “accidents”. It didn’t explain much.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it has detained six merchant ships and grounded another ship to ensure “full compliance” with its blockade.

Earlier, CENTCOM reported that an American soldier was killed in northern Iraq on Saturday in a “controlled explosion of unexploded ordnance” from a downed Iranian drone. It said that “unidentified remains” had been found at the site of the Iranian killings in Jordan on Friday and that “examinations to confirm the remains are ongoing”.

Two US soldiers died on Friday, while a third went missing.

The latest deaths bring the number of US servicemen killed since the war began to 17, with more than 420 injured.

The conflict, which began when the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, has killed thousands of people, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, and caused major disruptions in energy supplies and fears of global inflation.