Sunday, July 19, 2026 - Iran’s supreme leader vowed to teach the United States “unforgettable lessons” on Saturday, as Washington reported its first military deaths since renewing its hostilities with the Islamic republic.
A month after the foes signed a now-abandoned preliminary
deal aimed at ending their war, Tehran struck infrastructure around the Gulf in
retaliation for a week of intensifying US attacks, which Iran said had hit an
airport, a railway station and bridges.
Iran hit an oil facility in Kuwait as well as a power and
water plant, authorities in the Gulf state said, while in Bahrain the army said
air defences repelled a wave of Iranian attacks.
Tehran also launched fresh strikes in Jordan, where the US
military’s Central Command said two service members were killed on Friday as
they “defended against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks”. It said
another service member was still missing in action.
Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who took over from
his father after he was killed in the opening salvo of US-Israeli strikes on
February 28, said the ongoing attacks on his country “once again demonstrated
to everyone the worthlessness of the American president’s signature”.
"Now that the American enemy seeks to incite war and
bear its most serious consequences, it should know that the dear Iranian nation
and the axis of resistance have unforgettable lessons to offer it," he
added, in a statement carried by state TV.
Major General Mohsen Rezaei, a senior military adviser to
Khamenei, warned that Tehran would resume “full-scale offensive operations” if
US strikes continued in the coming days. "Iran will no longer limit itself
to retaliatory, like-for-like responses," Mohsen said, according to state
media.
Kuwait accused Tehran of targeting civilian sites and vital
infrastructure, with residents voicing fears that the renewed hostilities might
drag on. "The demand for water and canned goods has increased since this
morning amid fears that services or supply chains will be affected,"
Kuwait resident Hassan Rayan, 61, said Saturday. Fellow resident Ali Mahmoud,
46, noted that “the streets and beaches were almost empty, even though it is a
holiday”.
The Iranian army said it had targeted an air base used by the
United States in Bahrain, another US ally in the Gulf, according to the state
broadcaster. And in Jordan, the Iranian state broadcaster reported that fuel
tanks at its Al-Azraq base were targeted. The day before, the Revolutionary
Guards said they had attacked US aircraft stationed in the country with
missiles and drones. The Jordanian army said it had shot down 10 missiles on
Saturday, and at least three the day before.
Hope for a political settlement to the war has fallen by the
wayside, though mediators have attempted to bring both sides back to the
negotiating table. US President Donald Trump this week threatened to hit
Iranian infrastructure, although there has been no confirmation from Washington
since then that US forces have begun to do so.
Deputy Iranian foreign minister Kazem
Gharibabadi told state TV on Saturday that Washington was “not getting anywhere
with these aggressive actions”. "America has violated and stopped all its
commitments under that memorandum of understanding, and we have also stopped
all our commitments," he added.
Iranian state news agency IRNA reported Saturday that US attacks killed
three people and wounded eight in the southern province of Hormozgan. In
Khuzestan province, the deputy provincial governor said the US had attacked 95
locations in 12 cities over the past 10 days, according to Iran’s Tasnim news
agency, with eight people killed

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