Iran warns it will hit Israeli, Gulf power plants if US targets Iranian electric stations

‘If you hit electricity, we hit electricity,’ IRGC says, warns will also mine Gulf waters if invaded; Israel launches extensive strikes on Tehran as Iran continues missile attacks

Iran warned Monday it will strike electrical plants in Israel and across the Middle East if US President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to bomb power stations in the Islamic Republic, and threatened to mine the “entire Persian Gulf.”

The threat by Tehran, hours before a Trump deadline expires, puts at risk both electrical supplies and water in the Gulf Arab states, particularly as the desert nations commingle their power stations with desalination plants crucial for supplying drinking water.

Following the threat, Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency published a list of such facilities, citing the military as saying that “All power plants, energy infrastructure, and information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure of the Zionist regime will be widely targeted.”

Iranian attacks, which have been daily bombarding Israel and Gulf countries hosting US bases, continued overnight and into Monday.

Two missile attacks during the morning set off sirens in the north, central regions, including Jerusalem. Though some impacts were reported, there were no injuries.

The Israel Defense Forces, meanwhile, announced it had launched a “wide-scale” wave of airstrikes in Tehran, targeting infrastructure of Iran’s “terror regime.”

“Explosion heard in Tehran,” local media Mehr posted on Telegram, while Fars news agency said airstrikes had targeted five areas of the Iranian capital and that “terrible sounds of explosions have been reported”.

More than an hour after the reports, a thick plume of black smoke could still be seen billowing from one point in eastern Tehran, an AFP journalist noted.

Also, air defenses in the United Arab Emirates intercepted a ballistic missile near the Al Dhafra Air Base in Abu Dhabi, and one person on the ground was injured when hit with shrapnel.

Warning sirens sounded in Bahrain and Kuwait, while Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said it had intercepted a missile targeting Riyadh, and had destroyed drones over the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province.

In addition to targeting Israel and American bases, Iran has been hitting the energy infrastructure of its Gulf Arab neighbors.

It also has a tight grip on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which leads from the Persian Gulf toward the open ocean and through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped, along with other important commodities.

A trickle of ships has been getting through the strait and Iran insists it remains open — just not to the US, Israel or their allies.

The deadline

Trump said in a social media post Saturday that if Tehran didn’t open the strategic waterway to all ships within 48 hours, the United States would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants. His self-declared 48-hour deadline expires late Monday, Washington time, further raising the stakes of the ongoing war with Iran that has disrupted global energy supplies, sending natural gas and gasoline prices soaring.

Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responded Monday that if the US did that, Iran would respond by hitting power plants in all areas that supply electricity to American bases, “as well as the economic, industrial and energy infrastructures in which Americans have shares.”

“Do not doubt that we will do this,” the IRGC said in a statement read on Iranian state television.

“The lying … US President has claimed that the Revolutionary Guards intends to attack the water desalination plants and cause hardship to the people of the countries in the region,” said the statement shared on state media.

“We are determined to respond to any threat at the same level as it creates in terms of deterrence … If you hit electricity, we hit electricity.”

The Fars outlet, which is close to the IRGC, published a list of such sites in what appeared to be a veiled threat, including desalination plants as well as the UAE’s Barakah nuclear power plant, which has four reactors out in the western deserts of the country near its border with Saudi Arabia. The judiciary’s Mizan news agency also published the list.

The IRGC said it would also mean the Strait of Hormuz would remain shut.

“The Strait of Hormuz will be completely closed and will not be opened until our destroyed power plants are rebuilt,” the IRGC said in another statement.

Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf also said that if the US carries out its own threat, Iran would then consider vital infrastructure across the region — including energy and desalination facilities critical for drinking water in Gulf nations — legitimate targets.

While attacks on electricity could hurt Iran, they could be catastrophic for its Gulf neighbors, which consume around five times as much power per capita.

Electricity makes their gleaming desert cities habitable, in part by powering the desalination plants that produce 100 percent of the water consumed in Bahrain and Qatar. Such plants use seawater to meet more than 80% of drinking water needs in the United Arab Emirates, and 50% of the water supply in Saudi Arabia.

Israel draws about 70% of its potable water from desalination.

Mine the Gulf

As concerns grow in Tehran about the potential arrival of US Marines in the region, Iran’s Defense Council warned against the idea of an invasion.

“Any attempt by the enemy to target Iran’s coasts or islands will, naturally and in accordance with established military practice, lead to the mining of all access routes … in the Persian Gulf and along the coasts,” it said in a statement.

The US has been trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, to energy shipments. The Marines could come ashore to seize either islands or territory in Iran to support that mission. Israel also has suggested a ground operation could take part in the war.

Iranian leaders ‘hiding in bunkers’

The head of the US military’s Central Command said Iran is “operating in a sign of desperation” by targeting civilian sites in the war.

In an interview with the Farsi-language satellite network Iran International, US Navy Adm. Brad Cooper said: “They’re operating in a sign of desperation. … In the last couple of weeks, they’ve attacked civilian targets very deliberately, more than 300 times.”

In his first one-on-one interview of the war, Cooper said Iran’s continued attacks on Gulf Arab states and the wider Mideast put civilians at risk.

Cooper also noted the slowdown in Iranian incoming fire across the Mideast as the war has entered its fourth week.

“At the beginning of the conflict, you saw large volumes — in the dozens of drones and missiles,” Cooper said. “You no longer see that. It’s all one or two at a time.”

Cooper said the US campaign against Iran is “ahead or on plan.”

He added that the US and Israel are targeting missile and drone manufacturing sites.

Cooper also said it isn’t time for Iranians to take to the streets, although both Israel and the US have said they hope the Iranian public will topple the country’s theocracy as a result of the strikes.

“They’re launching missiles and drones from populated areas and you need to stay inside for right now,” Cooper said. “There will be a clear signal at some point, as the president has indicated, for you to be able to come out.”

Cooper said top leaders of Iran’s military are “in deep bunkers” while their frontline troops remain exposed to incoming American and Israeli airstrikes.

He said there is “extraordinary contrast” between the comfort and protection of senior generals and lower-ranked soldiers.

“The generals are protected. The soldiers are not protected,” he said.

Iran International has been a preoccupation of Iran’s theocracy, with authorities repeatedly saying they’ve arrested people who allegedly gave footage to the network.