The U.S. military has asserted that Iran’s ability to threaten maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has been “weakened” following the destruction of a facility on the Iranian coast earlier this week.
Admiral Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), noted that the U.S. military dropped several two-ton bombs on an underground facility located on the Iranian coast. The facility was used to store equipment, including anti-ship cruise missiles and mobile missile launchers, he explained.
Tehran was using “the hardened underground facility to discreetly store anti-ship cruise missiles, mobile missile launchers, and other equipment that posed a grave risk to international shipping,” Cooper stated.
“Iran’s ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and the surrounding area has been weakened, and we will not relent in our efforts to achieve these objectives,” Admiral Cooper declared in a video posted on social media.
Cooper also reported that the military has destroyed sites supporting Iranian intelligence operations, as well as missile radar repeaters used to monitor ship movements.
These targets are among the “more than 8,000” struck in Iran—again, according to CENTCOM—since the U.S. began operations three weeks ago.
Among these targets are 130 Iranian vessels, in what Cooper described as “the greatest destruction of a navy in a three-week period since World War II.”
In recent days, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has claimed responsibility for several attacks against vessels in the Strait of Hormuz as part of its response to the aforementioned offensive against the Asian nation—an offensive that has also involved attacks on Israeli territory and U.S. interests in the Middle East, including military bases. Iranian authorities have confirmed in their latest toll that more than 1,200 people have died as a result of the offensive by Israel and the United States, although the U.S.-based non-governmental organization Human Rights Activists in Iran raised the death toll to over 3,000 on Sunday—the majority of whom were civilians.
