Trump Threatens Iran Power Grid as U.S. Strikes Enter Seventh Night
The U.S. military completed seven straight nights of Iran strikes as Trump warned of imminent attacks on power plants and bridges if Tehran refuses to return to the negotiating table.
BANDAR ABBAS, Iran — U.S. forces completed their seventh consecutive night of airstrikes against Iranian territory early Saturday, as President Trump warned that American forces would expand their campaign to include power plants and bridges within days if Tehran does not return to ceasefire negotiations.
U.S. Central Command confirmed strikes targeting coastal installations near the port city of Bandar Abbas and the nearby islands of Qeshm and Larak late Friday into early Saturday. A highway tunnel and at least two bridges linking Bandar Abbas to Hajiabad were also struck, continuing a pattern of transportation-infrastructure targeting detailed in an earlier report on U.S. bridge strikes across southern Iran.
“We’re going to hit them very hard,” Trump told reporters Friday evening. “Next week comes the power plants, next week comes the bridges.” The president added separately: “We are winning big in Iran. You will see the fruits of this work very soon.”
Expanding Target Set
The strikes reflect a deliberate widening of U.S. operations beyond military facilities. Earlier in the week, U.S. aircraft struck and disabled an unladen, U.S.-sanctioned supertanker transiting international waters toward Kharg Island — Iran’s primary crude-oil export terminal — after the vessel repeatedly ignored blockade warnings, Bloomberg reported. An aircraft fired Hellfire missiles into the vessel’s smokestack. The strike was the first on a tanker inside the Persian Gulf since the U.S. reimposed its naval blockade on July 14.
Trump’s stated threat to target Iran’s power grid would mark a further escalation beyond military or transportation infrastructure. The Hill reported that the warning came alongside an implicit deadline: return to talks or face a wider campaign. No senior administration official has specified which facilities would be targeted or whether strikes on civilian electrical infrastructure would require additional legal review.
IRGC Warns of Full-Scale Counteroffensive
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has moved from defensive posture to explicit offensive threats in parallel with the U.S. escalation. Mohsen Rezaei, a senior IRGC official and military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said Friday that Iran would “move into a phase of full-scale offensive operations” if U.S. strikes continued “for several days,” according to state broadcaster IRIB. The scope and likely targets of any such offensive were analyzed in a separate report.
The IRGC separately warned it would “destroy the most important industrial, information technology, and artificial intelligence assets of companies with American shareholders throughout the region” if the U.S. continued striking Iranian transportation infrastructure, PressTV reported. The threat extends the potential conflict beyond direct military engagement and into the Gulf’s commercial ecosystem, including data centers, port logistics networks, and energy facilities with U.S.-linked ownership.
Oil Markets Price In Sustained Disruption
Brent crude futures traded near $86 per barrel on Friday, on track for a weekly gain of more than 10 percent, according to CNBC. West Texas Intermediate settled around $82 per barrel. Tanker transit volume through the Strait of Hormuz has fallen sharply since the blockade resumed — a decline in Hormuz shipping flows detailed here — putting Gulf supply increasingly at risk of physical interruption rather than speculative premium alone.
Analysts have noted that each day of infrastructure strikes on Iranian ports and transportation links raises the probability of a disruption that futures contracts cannot fully price in. Brent remains below the 2022 war-premium peak but is trending higher with each escalation cycle.
Diplomacy at a Standstill
Both governments confirmed that no direct talks are underway. The June memorandum of understanding — which called for formal negotiations within 60 days of its signing on June 17 — is widely viewed as no longer operative. Trump declared the ceasefire “over” on July 7 after the IRGC struck three commercial vessels near the Strait.
China’s Foreign Ministry called on both sides to “resolve disputes through dialogue and negotiation, and avoid resorting to force,” and Beijing’s UN deputy representative called for a renewed ceasefire. Russia expressed similar sentiments. Neither country has produced concrete diplomatic proposals. Separately, Iran has refused IAEA inspectors access to nuclear sites damaged in earlier strikes, complicating any path toward a formal settlement.
Trump’s stated timeline — power plants and bridges “next week” — suggests the conflict is entering a phase designed to impose mounting costs on Iran’s civilian and economic infrastructure. Whether that pressure produces diplomatic movement or triggers the full-scale IRGC counteroffensive its commanders have threatened remains the defining question as the crisis enters its second week of renewed fighting.
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