US strikes have destroyed bridges, tunnels and rail links across southern Iran in a seventh straight night of attacks, severing roads to the Strait of Hormuz coast and feeding talk in Washington and Tehran that a ground assault may follow.
On the ground in Hormozgan province, the damage has fallen heavily on the civilian road network, and the tally has grown by the day.
On Friday the provincial governor's office said six bridges had been struck in Khamir county alone, cutting the Bandar Abbas to Lar highway; its list ran from the Gariveh bridge to spans near the villages of Latidan and Maru, with residents told to keep off the routes and leave them clear for rescue teams.
Within a day, officials were adding to it. The Shahid Mirzaei road tunnel was reported damaged in both directions, the Roudkhaneh Shour bridge was hit on the Bandar Abbas to Sirjan route, and two more bridges were damaged on the road from the Minab junction toward Roudan. With attacks continuing nightly, no official list has stayed final for long.
The attacks have also reached utilities. Iranian media reported missile strikes on power facilities and desalination pumps in the coastal city of Jask, leaving some 10,000 people in 20 villages without water, according to the Tasnim news agency. The maritime control tower at Chabahar, which the Tehran daily Etemad described as civilian infrastructure that guides shipping and coordinates sea rescues, was hit for the third time in a week.
A port city going quiet
The cumulative effect is visible in Bandar Abbas, the provincial capital and Iran's main commercial gateway on the strait. Iran International has learned that the city has gone semi-dormant under the naval blockade and the severing of its road links, with activity at Shahid Rajaee, the country's largest container port, reduced to a minimum.
Half of the port's workforce has been laid off in recent weeks, according to the information received, and those still employed are working for minimum pay. More than 4,000 containers are stranded in the port's yards. The blockade closed the sea route weeks ago; the strikes on bridges are now closing the roads.
The Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries a fifth of the world's oil, has been shut to Iranian exports and contested for a week, with US Marines boarding a tanker, the Revolutionary Guards saying they stopped four vessels with missile and drone fire, and Washington enforcing what it calls a naval blockade. The Guards say that until US attacks end, not a drop of oil or gas will leave the region.
Talk of a ground campaign
Trump has made no secret of the targeting. He told Fox News this week that the United States would knock out Iran's power plants and bridges unless Tehran returned to negotiations, and said the strikes would continue "until I say it's enough."
Asked in the same interview about sending ground troops, the president declined to rule it out. "Sometimes you need a ground campaign," he said, adding, "we have other people who will do the ground campaign for us." He said American forces had already struck Kharg Island, the hub of Iran's oil exports, two or three times, with instructions to spare the oil terminals themselves.
Vice President JD Vance has said the United States does not intend to send ground troops to Iran, leaving the administration's position less than settled. US officials, for their part, have said the attacks on southern Iran are designed in part to give Trump options.
In Tehran, some of the loudest voices in the Islamic Republic's establishment are reading the map the same way. Amir-Hossein Sabeti, a hardline lawmaker from Tehran, wrote on social media that the destruction of the south's transport links was most likely the prelude to a ground attack, arguing that damaged roads and bridges would hamper the movement of Iranian forces ahead of any attempt to seize islands or key points on the coast.
Sabeti reserved part of his message for his own government, demanding that President Masoud Pezeshkian and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf either deliver on their promise that the agreement with Washington would end the war or admit their judgment had failed.
The swipe pointed to a widening argument inside the establishment over who bears responsibility for the ceasefire's collapse.
Mohsen Rezaei, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader and a former Revolutionary Guards commander, warned that if US strikes continue for several more days, Iran will move into what he called full-scale offensive operations.
Analysts note that a week of air strikes has not reopened the strait, and that controlling it durably may ultimately require forces on the coast or islands that command it, a step no amount of bombing substitutes for.
The targeting of bridges, power stations and water plants, on both sides, has drawn warnings beyond the region.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was concerned by attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran and across the Persian Gulf, where Kuwait's desalination plants have been hit twice in two days by Iranian strikes.
The 1949 Geneva Conventions prohibit attacks on sites essential to civilian survival, and American legal scholars warned earlier this year, after Trump first threatened Iran's infrastructure, that such strikes could amount to war crimes.
Oil prices climbed more than 4 percent on Friday to their highest level in over a month, a third straight weekly gain that adds pressure on Trump ahead of November's congressional elections.
The IRGC was designated alongside the Iran-linked Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right and Russia’s GRU Volunteer Corps, the first organizations placed under powers created by the National Security (State Threats) Act 2026.
The designations took effect on July 17 after Parliament approved an order submitted by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood four days earlier.
Under the new law, it is now a criminal offence to express support for the groups, including by glorifying or encouraging activity that threatens the safety of the United Kingdom.
Providing assistance or accepting money or another material benefit from a designated organization can also lead to prosecution. Those convicted could face prison sentences of up to 14 years.
People who commit sabotage, arson or other hostile acts on behalf of the groups could be charged separately under the National Security Act 2023 and face life imprisonment.
The designation is distinct from banning an organization under Britain’s terrorism legislation. It is designed specifically to address hostile activity linked to foreign governments, including espionage, political interference, intimidation, sabotage and physical attacks.
The government says the new framework will make it easier to prosecute people working for foreign organizations because prosecutors will not always have to establish a direct connection between an individual act and a foreign government.
Outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer said when the measures were announced that Britain would not be allowed to become “a playground for states who want to spread fear, division and violence on our streets.”
“We have already taken tough action against the Iranian regime and those linked to it, and against Russian operatives and networks targeting our country,” he said. “These new powers will make it easier to prosecute and lock up anyone carrying out their dirty work here in Britain.”
The IRGC is one of the Islamic Republic’s most powerful military and political institutions. Its overseas Quds Force oversees Tehran’s relationships with allied armed groups and has been accused by British authorities of directing operations against dissidents, journalists and Jewish or Israeli-linked targets in Europe.
The British government said the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right had claimed responsibility for seven attacks this year against Persian-language media and locations linked to Jewish and Israeli communities in Britain.
Those incidents included an antisemitic arson attack that damaged four ambulances belonging to the Jewish emergency service Hatzola in Golders Green, north London, on March 23.
British authorities said Quds Force members were behind the organization and had “almost certainly” directed its attacks across Europe. The allegations have not been tested in court.
The government has also cited at least 20 potentially lethal Iranian-backed plots identified by the domestic intelligence agency MI5 over a one-year period.
“Iran and Russia are using proxies and thugs to do their dirty work on our shores,” Mahmood said when she announced the intended designations. “We will find you, and we will lock you up.”
The third designated organization, the GRU Volunteer Corps, is described by Britain as a network controlled by Russian military intelligence that recruits people online to carry out arson, sabotage, harassment and other hostile activity.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the use of proxies by Iran and Russia to conduct operations on British soil was “reprehensible.”
The designation marks a significant escalation in Britain’s response to the IRGC. Rather than banning the organization as a terrorist group, the government has created a separate route to prosecute support, recruitment, financing and operational assistance linked to hostile foreign-state activity.
