A joint US-Israeli airstrike hit a major bridge near Iran's capital on Thursday, as US President Donald Trump threatened to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age”.
The airstrike targeted the "B1 Bridge" near the Azimiya area in Karaj, causing injuries and partial destruction. The bridge spans the Karaj River on the road leading to Chalous Avenue — a key mountain route linking Tehran to the Caspian Sea — and is a vital transport artery between the capital and the city of Karaj.
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Several people were injured in the strike, which was carried out by the United States and Israel, Iranian state media reported.
Tehran also said that bombs struck a century-old medical centre in Tehran. Images published by the health ministry show a largely destroyed building, which it identified as the Pasteur Institute of Iran.
The strike came hours after Trump's first prime-time address to the American nation since the war began. In a roughly 19-minute speech from the White House, Trump declared that the US will hit Iran "extremely hard" over the next two to three weeks, threatening to obliterate all of Iran's electric generating plants and target its oil sites if the country does not make a deal. "We're going to take them back to the stone age where they belong," he said.
The war began on February 28. The United States and Israel launched a series of strikes on Iran targeting its nuclear programme and ballistic missile capabilities. Iran responded with counter-strikes against Israel, US military bases, and several Arab states hosting American forces.
Meanwhile, On the diplomatic front, the UK hosted a virtual meeting of over 35 countries, including India, to discuss reopening the strait of Hormuz. The US as well as Gulf countries did not attend the meeting.
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Iran's foreign ministry said it "will not tolerate this vicious cycle of war, negotiations and ceasefire and then repeating the same pattern." Trump's April 6 deadline for Iran to reopen the strait remains in place, with threats to strike power plants if it does not comply.
With intense strikes promised for the weeks ahead and no ceasefire in sight, the conflict, now in its sixth week, is far from over.
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