Iran proves it can still inflict damage despite waves of US attacks

Screengrab from the Revolutionary Guards’ news site shows a missile being launched towards US targets in the Gulf. Photograph: Sephanews.com/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Screengrab from the Revolutionary Guards’ news site shows a missile being launched towards US targets in the Gulf. Photograph: Sephanews.com/AFP/Getty Images Analysis Iran proves it can still inflict damage despite waves of US attacks Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor Leaked US intelligence report concluded Iran retained 70% of missiles and launchers after 38-day spring campaign Iran and the US have been trading blows for six consecutive nights and there are no shortage of signs that the renewed fighting will worsen further. Tehran and Washington remain far apart diplomatically , and though the US retains a significant military overmatch, Iran has more than enough capability to inflict damage. Friday’s developments are a case in point. A wave of US attacks , with missiles launched from jets, drones and warships, targeted Iranian ports and the south of the country, collapsing a tower at Chabahar, on the Gulf of Oman, and highways and bridges into the key Hormuz port of Bandar Abbas, perhaps in an effort to cut it off. Iran responded in familiar fashion by attacking US allies : Qatar, Bahrain and most significantly Kuwait, where a power and desalination plant was hit, causing a fire and an undetermined amount of damage. Desalination is critical for water supply – and human life – in the arid Gulf, providing an estimated 90% of Kuwait’s needs. The US had claimed, repeatedly, that its intense 38-day spring bombing campaign with Israel had destroyed or decimated Iran’s military. This week, with surprising precision, Trump told Fox News that Iran’s “weapons are down 91%”, but US intelligence reports and the scale of Iranian attacks tell a different story. Leaked US intelligence assessments concluded in May that Iran had regained access to 30 out of 33 missile launch sites along the strait of Hormuz and perhaps 70% of its overall prewar missile stockpile and launchers. It is easier to block the entrance to an Iranian underground missile base with rubble from explosions than entirely disable it, but that makes a clear-up during the late spring ceasefire perfectly possible. Two oil tankers that were sailing along the southern route of the strait of Hormuz, near Oman, were struck by missiles on Monday, according to the UK’s Maritime Trade Organisation, killing one sailor and wounding eight. A third tanker was struck further east, in the Gulf of Oman, 45 miles north-west of Qalhat, illustrating the range of Iranian air power against tankers that are hard to defend unless a warship is close. The results were predictable: the US reimposed its own blockade in the Gulf of Oman, the number of daily transits through Hormuz dropped to three by Thursday, the fewest since May, and the price of Brent crude oil , which ended last week at $75.50, rose to $82. Iran has to retain only