Iran Says 18 Dead in US Strikes; Trump 'Prepared to Do Another One Any Time'
Iran’s health minister said 18 people were killed and 108 injured in the American attacks, as officials named the four dead at the Kuhestak wedding — two women and two children, the youngest four years old — and called the strike a “war crime”. Verified footage suggests a cruise-missile remnant landed 112 metres from a telecoms tower. “It was a very heavy attack last night, and we’re prepared to do another one any time we want,” President Trump said, later musing about renaming the waterway “Trump Strait”.
The named dead — a fifty-year-old woman, a forty-three-year-old woman, a boy of sixteen, a child of four — are doing what casualty counts cannot: giving Iran’s narrative faces at precisely the moment Washington’s spokesman insists the military “never targets civilians”. Both can be true — a precision weapon aimed at a telecoms tower, a wedding a hundred metres away — and it will not matter; the father of the bride on state television is worth more to Tehran than a missile battery. Mr Trump’s register, meanwhile, oscillated between menace and real estate, dismissing any “worthless” agreement while inviting Iranians to “rise up”. The economics tighten regardless: petrol at $4.12 a gallon in America, the rial at record lows, Brent up thirty per cent since February. Watch whether tonight passes without a third round.