Trump says US destroyed every military target on Iran’s Kharg Island, threatens oil infrastructure if tankers blocked

President Trump said on Friday that the U.S. military conducted one of the most “powerful” bombing raids and totally “obliterated” every military target on Iran’s Kharg Island, one of the country’s most vital economic outposts. 

The president said that for “reasons of decency,” the U.S. military did not wipe out the oil infrastructure on the island, from which some 90 percent of the nation’s oil exports depart. 

“However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. 

The bombardment on the island, located in the Persian Gulf, comes as oil prices have shot up since the war broke out on Feb. 28. Iran has retaliated by targeting vessels transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of global gas and oil passes. 

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, put out his first statement on Thursday, saying that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed and that Iran will keep attacking U.S. Gulf allies. 

Trump said Friday that Iran has no ability to defend anything that Washington desires to attack. 

“There is nothing they can do about it! Iran will NEVER have a nuclear weapon, nor will it have the ability to threaten the United States of America, the Middle East or, for that matter, the World,” the president said. “Iran’s Military, and all others involved with this Terrorist Regime, would be wise to lay down their arms, and save what’s left of their country, which isn’t much!” 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday morning that later today the U.S. military would unleash the “highest volume of strikes that America has put over the skies of Iran and Tehran.”  

“The number of sorties and number of bomber pulses, the highest yet, ramping up and only up,” he said. “And quantity has a quality of its own as we continue to ramp up.”

The Pentagon chief said the U.S. and Israeli military have hit more than 15,000 targets inside Iran since the war broke out. 

“That’s well over 1000 a day. No other combination of countries in the world can do that,” Hegseth said during a press briefing at the Pentagon. 

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