New York : A US airstrike hit a residential home where a wedding celebration was taking place in southern Iran, killing at least five people, including a 4-year-old child, and wounding more than 50 others. The strike came as the US and Iran returned to intense fighting after a period of relative calm.”This cruelty cannot be separated from the chain of atrocities that preceded it,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, referring to other deadly incidents including a US airstrike on a girls’ school in Minab that Iranian authorities say killed 160 people on the first day of the current war.
The wedding attack has drawn a sharp response from Iran. The Iranian embassy in India called it “another crime by the terrorist US military” and said at least five people were killed and more than 50 wounded in the attack on the wedding ceremony in Bandar Kuhestak. Iranian state broadcaster IRIB also reported rising casualties from the attack and shared visuals from the scene. Reports from Iranian authorities have varied as rescue and casualty assessments continued. Reuters reported that as many as 68 people were wounded.
The US said its targets included air defence systems, radar installations, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities and communications facilities. The strikes came after Washington accused Iran of attempting to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz and carrying out attacks against US forces in the region. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed it attacked US military facilities in Jordan and Iraq and said American personnel were killed.
Iranian media reported that the IRGC’s ground forces carried out missile and drone attacks on US bases in Erbil in northern Iraq. The claims of American casualties were not independently confirmed by the US or Iraq. The latest exchange marks the most serious escalation between Washington and Tehran in weeks. The two sides had largely held their fire since July, but the pause had not resulted in a return to meaningful negotiations.
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