US, Iran step up tit-for-tat strikes

Iran warned that it could expand its fighting with the United States, including targeting its allies, if President Donald Trump carries out his threats to attack key Iranian sites, including the Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility.

The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters warned that Iran considers any US attack on the country's nuclear facilities as an expansion of conflict, Tasnim News Agency reported.

Iran's latest warning came after Trump told his visiting Lebanese counterpart Michel Aoun that the US would target Pickaxe Mountain "pretty soon", even as the mounting costs of the war had already cost taxpayers $37.5 billion. The figure was revealed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during a hearing before the Senate's appropriations committee on Tuesday.

Hegseth also said the price tag includes some operations and maintenance costs extending through the end of September. The US defense chief requested a $1.5 trillion defense budget, including nearly $70 billion for the campaign against Iran.

If the US military enters such a stage, "We consider it as an expansion of war in the region and all the interests of America and the allies and supporters of that rogue and evil country will be the target of powerful strikes by the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran," Tasnim quoted a top military commander as saying.

The US launched an 11th night of airstrikes on the republic, hitting targets across the nation as air defense systems opened fire over the capital, Tehran.

Iran's state-run IRNA News Agency reported that explosions rocked several provinces.

Meanwhile, the Iranian army said its forces launched retaliatory drone strikes against US bases and assets in Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait on Wednesday.

In statements published on its website, the army said its forces hit buildings housing US forces and US equipment depots at the al-Azraq base in Jordan, and targeted large US equipment depots and silos as well as heavy aircraft maintenance hangars at the Shaikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain.

It said its forces also launched drone attacks on US military units in Kuwait.

The strikes were in retaliation for recent US attacks against Iranian regions, it said, adding that its forces are ready to confront any new "conspiracy and adventurism by the enemy".

Meanwhile, shipping remains through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded passed in peacetime. Over the past three months, the US Central Command said, Iran had attacked more than 30 commercial vessels transiting the international waterway vital for regional and global trade.

Brent crude hit its highest price in more than a month amid escalated attacks for the 11th consecutive night, with trading up 1.2 percent at $94.25 a barrel at about 09:00 Greenwich Mean Time — its highest intraday since early June.

Diplomatic efforts

During an official visit by Iran's Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni on Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif shared his deep concern over the recent escalation in the Gulf region and urged all sides to exercise restraint and refrain from actions that could further destabilize the region, according to a statement posted on the Pakistani Prime Minister's Office's X account. Pakistan would continue to play its role "as an honest and sincere mediator and facilitator", reiterating its strong commitment to regional peace and stability, the statement said.

Nagapushpa Devendra, a West Asia analyst and research scholar at the University of Erfurt in Germany, told China Daily that the threatened attack on Pickaxe Mountain "does not amount to a confident strategy by the United States".

"Rather, it reveals the absence of a credible road map. Now, Washington believes that a stronger attack would restore deterrence, weaken Iran or push Tehran into submission. This is precisely the logic that has pushed the conflict for so long, and destroying or partially damaging fortified nuclear facilities is not going to end the scientific knowledge of Iran or push Iran to end its missile program or its capacity to retaliate."

Devendra added that such an attack is "only going to give Iran an excuse to further strengthen its military as well as its nuclear capacity and which could trigger a new cycle (of violence) in the region".

AGENCIES and Xinhua contributed to this story.

Contact the writers at jan@chinadailyapac.com