US and Iran continue attacks, but the White House says diplomacy is still possible

US “Forces launched a new wave of attacks against Iran for the sixth night, aimed at further weakening Iranian military capacities”, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said late Thursday night.

Friday morning, CENTCOM announced that the mission had been carried out “with success” and that “these “ ” military targets in Iran.

US <x0 Groups, including fighter aircraft, intimidation and warships, used precise ammunition to hit dozens of Iranian military targets, such as coastal surveillance and air defence positions, military logistical infrastructure and naval capacity”, the statement said.

White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavet said that “the reason for the attacks of recent days is that Iran violated the memorandum of understanding we had reached with them”.

Under the memorandum of understanding they signed, they should not particularly shoot on commercial ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, but unfortunately they made the tragic decision to do so”, she said.

Blasts in Iran

Early Friday morning, Iranian state media reported explosions and attacks in several areas of the country.

The confirmation of these explosions was not immediately possible, and CENTCOM did not reveal exactly where the areas had acted.

Iranian media reported attacks about the island laughed near the Strait of Hormuz, which has been the central point of conflict in recent weeks.

Tasnim news agency also reported that American fighter aircraft had attacked the airport in Iranshahr, a city of about 100,000 inhabitants, about 300km from Oman Bay in southern Iran.

Except, Fars agency reported that a bridge in Bandar Khamir was hit by an American attack. Bandar Khamir is located on Iranian continental territory in front of the island of Smile, which has often been hit.

Later, Iranian media reported that five bridges south of the country were hit during the recent wave of American attacks, adding that seven people had lost their lives. Checking these reports was impossible.

Blasts were also reported in Bushehr, Iran's only civilian nuclear power plant. State television named the attack as “following the aggression of the American enemy”.

Blasts were also reported at a railway joint in Bandar Abbas and near Ahvaz, where residents told AFP they had heard powerful explosions for the second consecutive night.

Iran Responds

In the early hours Friday, authorities in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar said their air defence systems were reacting to missile attacks and feared Iranians.

Iranian media said the country's military was targeting American helicopters and planes based on an air base in Bahrain “in response to the hostile action of the enemy that hit urban infrastructure and innocent people”.

The troops of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) claimed in two separate statements late Thursday that they had hit US military bases in Kuwait and Jordan.

In one statement, IRC claimed the US Army had used air bases in Jordan to launch attacks on Iran the previous night.

According to the statement, Iran countered with missile attacks on “the American fighter aircraft parking platform and the new American command and control centre in western Asia at the Azraz Air Base in Jordan”.

In a second statement, The IRC claimed it had carried out a combined missile attack and fears against the “satellite communications centre, early warning radar facility at Ali Al Salem Air Base, and the American military moth in Shuaybah in Kuwait”.

CENTCOM has yet to react to IRC claims.

New military actions have added concerns between analysts in the region and in the West that Washington and Tehran may be nearing a return to general war.

A Reachable Option

However, the White House implied that diplomacy continues to remain achievable.

The president will hold Iranian leaders accountable when they withdraw from the promises they made to the United States. But he is always open to diplomacy at the same time”, Leavitt told reporters.

“They have indicated they still want to reach an agreement with the president. We're talking to them, but the president won't let them attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz without facing the consequences of”.

In a televised address Thursday evening, Trump said that “is taking a firm victory in Iran. You will soon see the results of this” without further detail.

Hopes that both sides may be moving towards reconciliation increased on the evening of July 15th, when Tehran allowed an American citizen, of whom Washington says it was “unjustly maintained” since 2024, to leave the country.

The United States valued this gesture of goodwill from Iran!”, Trump wrote in a post on social networks.

Human rights lawyer Jared Genser identified the American as Dena Karari, saying she had been released after facing <x0*acles fabricated”.

The Iranian judicial system stated that his investigations showed that no American citizens complying with the description by Trump, or any other banned American, had been released from Iranian prisons or exchanged.

However, Karari's lawyer said the 53-year-old woman had not been imprisoned, but that her passport had been confiscated, which had prevented her from leaving Iran.

Tehran is often involved in what has been called the “hostage diplomacy” ban on citizens with dual citizenship and foreign citizens for arbitrary reasons, with the aim of using them as a means of pressure on foreign governments to meet their demands. / REL/