The United States military has destroyed a surveillance tower at Iran’s Chah Bahar Shahid Kalantari Port on the Gulf of Oman, which it said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had used for decades to track and target commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
The United States Central Command confirmed the strike on Friday, saying the tower formed part of a maritime surveillance network along Iran’s Gulf of Oman coastline.
“The destruction of the tower directly degrades the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ ability to coordinate attacks on innocent civilian crew members,” CENTCOM said in a statement.
The command added that the strike also helped protect freedom of navigation in regional waters for the benefit of all nations.
An image of the tower collapsing was shared on X by United States Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Iranian state media confirmed a third round of strikes on the facility but did not immediately acknowledge the reported collapse of the tower.
Iran said the tower had been used to monitor commercial traffic at the port.
The strike was part of a wider wave of overnight attacks that CENTCOM described as the sixth consecutive night of United States strikes against Iran.
The operation also targeted bridges in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, including routes connected to Bandar Khamir near the Strait of Hormuz, as well as air defence systems, military logistics infrastructure and coastal missile sites.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and 20 per cent of the world’s liquefied natural gas passes, has been at the centre of an escalating conflict between Washington and Tehran since Iran moved to restrict commercial traffic through the waterway earlier this year.
(The Whistler)