ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A US strike hit part of Iran’s Tehran-Mashhad railway overnight, disrupting passenger traffic on one of the country’s busiest routes hours before the remains of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei were due to arrive in Mashhad for burial, Iranian authorities said.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Railways said trains on the Tehran-Mashhad route had been delayed after a “Zionist-American” attack on a section of the railway early Thursday.
“Technical and operational teams from the railway were immediately dispatched to the site, and reconstruction work on the damaged section is underway. Efforts are being made to repair the route in the shortest possible time,” IRIB News reported.
The disruption on the railway line came as Mashhad prepared for the burial of Khamenei’s remains, following days of mourning and funeral ceremonies in Iran and Iraq. Large crowds gathered in Najaf and Karbala on Wednesday to say farewell to Khamenei before his body was flown back to Mashhad from Najaf on Thursday.
The attack on the railway line followed Trump’s threats on Wednesday at the NATO summit in Ankara that US forces could destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure within a short time if Tehran did not behave properly.
The US has largely refrained from attacking civilian infrastructure, said Trump, warning that Washington could target Iran’s infrastructure if necessary. “I would say in one day we knock down every single bridge in Iran,” Trump said in Ankara on Wednesday. “They have desalination plants. We’ll take them out if we have to. I’d hate to do that.”
The latest escalation has placed further strain on a fragile ceasefire, with both sides accusing the other of violating understandings reached after weeks of war.
The strike was part of another round of attacks by US Central Command, which said it struck 90 targets, including “air defense systems, coastal surveillance assets, missile and drone storage sites, naval capabilities, and military logistics infrastructure along Iran’s coastline.”
Tehran and Washington have exchanged fire over the past three days, beginning with the IRGC targeting three vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, including a Qatari LNG tanker, to stop ships from using the Omani route out of the Persian Gulf.
There were also reports of attacks on a number of refineries overnight, including in Lavan, but Iran later described the reports as fake.
CENTCOM said the strikes were aimed at degrading Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran has responded furiously to the threats, with Iranian officials warning that if their infrastructure is attacked, they would retaliate in kind across the Gulf region.
On Tuesday, Washington revoked the licence which was granted last month to Iran to sell oil until August 21 as part of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) because of the attacks on vessels in the strategic waterway.
