Iran's top military command threatened Thursday to "crush" American and allied targets across the Middle East if President Trump follows through on his vow to bomb Iranian bridges and power plants next week, hours after U.S. Central Command wrapped an overnight wave of strikes on the port of Bandar Abbas.
The exchange, a fifth straight day of open fighting, hardens what only weeks ago had briefly looked like a workable truce and dims the near-term prospect of the fresh nuclear talks Trump said Iran had requested. Iran's Wednesday-night release of an American citizen it held since late 2024 offered the sole flicker of de-escalation. Oil edged lower Thursday, suggesting traders now price in a grinding standoff rather than a supply rupture.
What Iran said
The statement, published on Telegram Thursday morning by a spokesperson for Iran's top military command, warned that if Trump follows through, "all the infrastructure in the region – will be crushed under the steel blows of the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran; so that no trace of them remains and it is as if they never existed in the first place." The spokesperson said Tehran would not permit American interference in the Strait of Hormuz "under no circumstances and in no way," calling the position "Iran's invincible red line."
Trump had told Fox News's Bret Baier in an interview aired Tuesday night: "We're going to knock out all their power plants. We're going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate." U.S. negotiators, he added, had told Iranian counterparts they had "better make a deal, or you're not going to have anything left." UN human rights chief Volker Türk warned in April, when Trump first floated the same targets, that "deliberately attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime."
Overnight strikes
U.S. Central Command said its overnight wave, which ended at 9 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday, struck "Iranian command centers, air defense sites, missile and drone capabilities, and coastal surveillance facilities," using "precision munitions to hit targets in multiple locations including Bandar Abbas," Iran's largest Persian Gulf port. Iran's army said at least seven Iranian military personnel were killed in a U.S. strike on a base in the southeastern city of Bampur.
Iran fired missiles and drones at U.S. installations in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain, Iranian state television reported. Kuwait's military said it was intercepting Iranian attack drones, and Bahrain's military said it "succeeded in intercepting and destroying" aerial attacks.
The prisoner release
Trump announced Wednesday evening that Iran had released Dena Karari, a U.S. citizen held since December 2024. Karari is "now safely outside of Iran, and in good condition," Trump wrote on Truth Social, calling the release a "gesture of Goodwill by Iran." Karari's lawyer, Jared Genser, said his client had been under a "coercive exit ban" but "never physically detained," and had been "interrogated dozens of times" by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry over her work with the Children of Mehr Foundation, a U.S. Treasury-licensed nonprofit that supports impoverished Iranian children. As many as five other Americans remain held in Iran, NBC News reported, including Reza Valizadeh and Kamran Hekmati, both publicly designated by the State Department as wrongfully detained.
Markets
Brent crude futures for September delivery slipped 0.5 percent to $84.42 a barrel by 4:30 a.m. Eastern time Thursday, and U.S. West Texas Intermediate front-month futures fell 0.2 percent to $79.47. Richard de Meo, founder of London commodity-hedging brokerage Attara, told CNBC that some businesses were "taking false comfort from relatively range-bound market conditions."
The counterpoint
Not every analyst credits Trump's escalation with strategic weight. Clark H. Summers of Belmont Abbey College told CNBC that U.S. precision strikes would prove "ineffective strategically" as long as Iran keeps producing drones and missiles. Only a serious ground threat, Summers said, could destroy the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a governing body — an operation he described as "beyond the current capabilities" of American conventional forces. Summers added that Trump appeared to know current U.S. industrial and logistics capabilities are "not able to sustain this conflict on an open-ended basis." Fox News contributor Hugh Hewitt argued the opposite in an opinion column, urging Trump to press the campaign further and warning the "already tattered Iranian economy will struggle to meet basic needs" if strikes intensify.
Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said Wednesday that Trump's decision to reimpose the naval blockade on Iranian ports "has, in a way, dismantled" the June memorandum of understanding that ended the first phase of the war. Trump told Fox Business News on Wednesday that Iranian officials had asked for fresh talks. Whether those talks happen before next week's threatened power-plant strikes will settle whether the "red line" is warning or schedule.