President Donald Trump used pointed language on Friday to describe Iran’s Kharg Island oil export terminal as the country’s “crown jewel,” announcing that US Central Command had struck it in one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East. Every military installation on the island was destroyed, Trump said, while the oil infrastructure was spared for now as a conditional reprieve. He warned that any Iranian interference with Strait of Hormuz shipping would end that reprieve immediately.
The announcement came on a day when Trump had already used some of his most inflammatory language toward Iran, calling its leaders “deranged scumbags” and declaring the killing of those leaders a great personal honor. US and Israeli aircraft conducted successive waves of bombing runs over Tehran and elsewhere in Iran throughout the day. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that combined forces had struck more than 15,000 enemy targets since the war began, a pace exceeding 1,000 per day.
Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who took over after Israel’s killing of his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei triggered the current war, issued a Thursday written statement calling for unity and pledging continued resistance. Hegseth dismissed the statement as weak, noting the complete absence of any voice or video as evidence that Khamenei had been wounded and disfigured. He said Iranian leaders were “desperate and hiding,” having gone underground to escape the bombing campaign.
The violence continued to spread outward from Iran. Lebanon has recorded more than 600 deaths and 800,000 displaced, with eight more killed in Sidon Friday. Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel, injuring about 60. Saudi Arabia intercepted close to 50 Iranian drones. Qatar ordered Doha evacuations before intercepting a missile. Two died in Oman from drone crashes. Debris struck a building in Dubai’s financial district. Iranian Revolutionary Guards launched new coordinated attacks on Israel with Hezbollah as part of al-Quds Day.
Iran has reported over 1,300 deaths. The United States has lost 13 service members, including six in a tanker aircraft crash in Iraq. France lost one soldier to a militia drone in Iraq. Tehran residents describe a city of constant bombardment, power failures, rubble, and trapped people unable to flee for lack of fuel. European nations, reportedly including France, have opened quiet negotiations with Tehran aimed at securing safe passage for commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Oil markets continued to fluctuate wildly amid the uncertainty of a war with no immediate end in sight.