A deadly explosion that rocked an apartment building in southern Iran on Saturday and that officials said had most likely been caused by a gas leak spread panic in a country on edge about a potential outside attack.
The explosion, at an eight-story apartment building in the port city of Bandar Abbas, killed at least one person and injured at least 14 others, according to Fars, a news agency affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The head of the local fire department told the Mehr News Agency that all of the injured had been evacuated.
As news of the damage emerged, unsubstantiated social media reports claimed that the explosion had been the result of a U.S.- or Israeli-led assassination of the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ navy, Commodore Alireza Tangsiri. But in a statement, the Guards denied that Commodore Tangsiri had been killed, calling the speculation “psychological warfare” spread by Israeli intelligence.
Neither Israel nor the United States commented publicly on the claims.
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President Trump is weighing military action against Iran
President Trump has been presented in recent days with an expanded list of potential military options against Iran aimed at doing further damage to the country’s nuclear and missile facilities or weakening Iran’s supreme leader, according to multiple U.S. officials.
The options go beyond the proposals that Mr. Trump was considering two weeks ago as a means of following through on his promise to stop the killing of protesters by Iranian government security forces and affiliated militias, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss potential military plans.
The current set of options even includes the potential for American forces to carry out raids on sites inside Iran, and it comes in a different context, now that the protests have been brutally quashed, at least for the time being.
Mr. Trump has been demanding that Iran take further steps to end its push to build a nuclear weapon and halt its support for proxies that have long targeted Israel and destabilized the Middle East. He and his top aides are weighing whether to make good on his threats of military action to achieve those goals and possibly bring about a change in government.
US military force build-up near Iran
In recent days, the U.S. military has built up forces close to Iran, in what President Trump has referred to as an “armada.”
That armada appears to be the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, which is accompanied by three warships equipped with Tomahawk missiles.
The vessels entered the Central Command’s area of responsibility in the western Indian Ocean on Monday, and are now on station in the Arabian Sea, Navy officials said on Thursday. Flight tracking data corroborates the aircraft carrier’s location: One of its Osprey supply aircraft repeatedly flew from the Arabian Sea to nearby Oman this week.
Iran asks US to stop public threats against country
Iran will not engage in direct negotiations with the United States unless President Trump stops threatening it, its foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on Friday.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to Istanbul, Mr. Araghchi said talks to calm tensions between Iran and the United States had to be based on a “fair and equitable” approach and could not begin with threats.
President Trump has threatened military action against Iran, aimed at forcing it to agree to American demands that include a halt to its nuclear program, limits on its ballistic missiles and the end of its support to allied militias in the Arab world.
Mr. Trump, who has said that time is running out before he strikes Iran “with great power, enthusiasm and purpose,” is now considering options for an attack, U.S. officials have said.
Source: The New York Times