Explosions Reported In Mahshahr, Imam Khomeini Port, Sirik, Jask, Khvormuj And Chabahar As Iran Retaliates With New Missiles From Lorestan Province And Kuwait’s Desalination Plant Burns For A Second Day
According to Al Jazeera, the United States launched strikes on Iran for a ninth consecutive night on July 20, with state broadcaster IRIB reporting explosions across multiple cities including a first-ever attack on Tabriz in northwestern Iran; dramatically expanding the geographic scope of the conflict.
CENTCOM confirmed the strikes were aimed at “degrading Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial vessels and mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”
Explosions were reported in the port cities of Mahshahr and Imam Khomeini in Khuzestan province, near Sirik and Jask in Hormozgan province, near Khvormuj in Bushehr province, and in the southeastern cities of Konarak and Chabahar in Sistan and Baluchestan where air defences were activated.
Three explosions near Tabriz, if confirmed, mark the first time Iran’s major northwestern industrial city has been targeted since the conflict began on February 28.
The attacks came the same day the US military announced a third American soldier had been killed, bringing the total US fatalities since the war began to 17, with more than 420 wounded. Iran responded with retaliatory missile strikes from Lorestan province targeting US military assets across the region. Kuwait reported hostile drone threats and its desalination plant was struck for the second consecutive day.
Day 9 answers a question the first week of strikes left open: how wide is Washington willing to make the target map? Tabriz is not a coastal city. It is not near the strait. It is Iran’s fourth-largest city and one of its industrial centres. Striking it signals that the US is no longer limiting strikes to capabilities directly connected to the Hormuz chokepoint. That is an escalation of both geography and intent.
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