TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Airstrikes hit two bridges and a
train station in Iran on Tuesday, and Iranian officials urged young people to
form human chains to protect power plants, as U.S. President Donald Trump
warned that a "whole civilization will die tonight" if Tehran does
not meet his latest deadline for the Islamic Republic to agree to a deal that
includes reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
The U.S. also struck military targets on the Iranian oil
hub of Kharg Island, according to a White House official who was not authorized
to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The attack marked the
second time the island was targeted. Earlier in the war, American forces struck
air defenses, a radar site, an airport and a hovercraft base there, according
to satellite analysis by the Institute for the Study of War and the American
Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project.
Trump has extended previous deadlines but suggested the
one set for 8 p.m. in Washington was final, and the rhetoric on both sides
reached a fever pitch, leaving Iranians on edge. Trump threatened to destroy
all of Iran's power plants and bridges if Tehran does not allow traffic to
fully resume in the strait, through which a fifth of the world's oil transits
in peacetime. Iran's president said 14 million people, including himself, have
volunteered to fight.
It was not clear if the latest airstrikes were linked to
Trump's threat to attack bridges. At least two of the targets were connected to
Iran's rail network, which Israel earlier signaled it might attack. Israel has
increasingly carried out strikes that it says are aimed at delivering a blow to
Iran's economy.
Iran, meanwhile, fired on Israel and Saudi Arabia,
prompting the temporary closure of a major bridge. While Iran cannot match the
sophistication of U.S. and Israeli weaponry or their dominance in the air, its
chokehold on the strait is causing major damage to the world economy and
raising the pressure on Trump both at home and abroad to find a way out of the
standoff.
Officials involved in diplomatic efforts said talks were
ongoing — but Iran has rejected the latest American proposal, and it was
unclear if a deal would come in time to head off Trump's threatened attacks.
World leaders and experts warned that strikes as destructive as Trump
threatened could constitute a war crime.
As the deadline approaches, rhetoric ramps up: "A
whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again," if a
deal isn't reached, Trump said in a post Tuesday morning, while keeping open
the possibility of an off-ramp, saying that "maybe something
revolutionarily wonderful can happen."
Earlier, Iranian official Alireza Rahimi issued a video
message calling on "all young people, athletes, artists, students and
university students and their professors" to form human chains around
power plants.
Iranians have formed human chains in the past around
nuclear sites at times of heightened tensions with the West. This time though,
it was unclear who would heed the call, and one major power plant in Tehran
apparently had been closed off for security purposes at the time the
demonstration was to start.
President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on X that 14 million
Iranians had answered state media and text message campaigns urging people to
volunteer to fight — and said he would join them — while a general from the
paramilitary Revolutionary Guard urged parents to send their children to man
checkpoints. The Guard, meanwhile, warned that Iran would "deprive the
U.S. and its allies of the region's oil and gas for years" and expand its
attacks across the Gulf region if Trump carries out his threat.
In Tehran, the mood was bleak. A young teacher said that
many opponents of Iran's Islamic system had hoped Trump's attacks would quickly
topple it. Now, as the war drags on, she fears U.S. and Israeli attacks will
spread chaos. "If we don't have the internet, and if we don't have
electricity, water, and gas, we're really going back to the Stone Age, as Trump
said," she said told The Associated Press, speaking anonymously for her
safety.
Trump's threat prompts warnings of war crimes
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot joined a growing
chorus of international voices and calling for restraint, saying attacks
targeting civilian and energy infrastructure "are barred by the rules of
war, international law." "They would without doubt trigger a new
phase of escalation, of reprisals, that would drag the region and the world
economy into a vicious circle," the minister said on France Info
television.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres also warned the
U.S. that attacks on civilian infrastructure are banned under international
law, according to his spokesperson. Such cases are notoriously difficult to
prosecute, and Trump told reporters he's "not at all" concerned about
committing war crimes.
-PBS
WATCH: What
international law says about Trump's threats to bomb Iran's bridges and power
plants
WATCH: Trump
claims Iranians 'want to hear bombs' because they want to be free
WATCH: People
in Tehran on edge as Trump's deadline for Iran looms
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