US Strikes Expand Into Northern Iran on the Fifth Day
American forces widened their campaign against Iran overnight into a fifth consecutive day, striking coastal-defence and cruise-missile sites, including a 90-minute barrage on Greater Tunb Island, and expanding the strikes into northern Iran for the first time. US Central Command said it was continuing to enforce its naval blockade of Iran’s ports, having turned back or disabled ships bound for the country and redirected two compliant vessels in the blockade’s first day. President Trump is reported to be weighing options to widen the operation further.
The expansion into northern Iran is the signal to watch: a campaign that began around the Strait of Hormuz is spreading up the country, widening both the geography and the ambition of an operation that shows no sign of a defined end. Enforcing a blockade on a nation you are bombing is an extraordinary step, and the daily grind of strikes on coastal and military targets is meant to degrade Iran’s ability to hit the shipping that carries a fifth of the world’s oil. Yet five days in there is no sign of either Iranian capitulation or an American exit, which is the most dangerous state for a war to occupy. Britain’s forces sit inside the map, at the Bahrain naval base and the Qatar air hub, and its households feel the war through the pump and the gas bill. Watch how far north the strikes reach, whether any oil infrastructure is hit, and whether Trump’s hints of widening the operation become fresh targets.