Donald Trump has claimed responsibility for destroying Iran's largest bridge, a day after threatening to bomb the country "back to the stone ages" unless a deal was reached to end the five-week-old war. The US president shared footage of the newly built 136-metre-high, $400m B1 suspension bridge between Tehran and Karaj collapsing into the causeway below amid a plume of black smoke.
Iranian state media in Karaj reported eight people killed and 95 wounded in the attack, which struck the middle of the bridge twice. Later imagery showed a clear gap at the centre of what had been one of Iran's premier infrastructure projects. "The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again," Trump posted on Truth Social, adding that there would be "much more to follow" if a settlement was not reached.
The bridge strike was one of several confirmed attacks in Iran this week, despite the difficulty of obtaining independent information with the internet shut down by the authorities. Footage of an earlier strike on a missile base in Isfahan was confirmed as genuine, showing fiery plumes and secondary explosions. Isfahan is also where Iran is thought to have moved some or all of its 440kg stockpile of 60% enriched uranium, which could theoretically be used to make ten nuclear bombs if further enriched.
In a primetime speech a day earlier, Trump declared the war launched by the US and Israel on 28 February was "nearing completion" and that the US would "very shortly" achieve nearly all its strategic objectives. He repeated a threat to destroy Iran's power plants, saying: "We are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously." Iran said it would conduct "more crushing, broader and more destructive" attacks in the future, with a military spokesperson vowing the war would continue until the "permanent regret and surrender" of Iran's enemies.
At least 1,900 people have been killed and 20,000 injured in Iran since the start of the war, according to a rough estimate by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Oil prices jumped by 7% to $108 a barrel as there appeared to be no immediate sign of the conflict ending. UN secretary general António Guterres warned that the world is "on the edge of a wider war" with catastrophic global implications.
