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US-Israeli strikes hit an area near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant on Saturday, prompting its foreign minister to warn that the effects of any fallout would be felt most keenly by the country’s Gulf neighbours.
The strikes came as the search continued for a missing US airman whose fighter jet went down over Iran, and as Tehran announced fresh attacks in the region, with the Revolutionary Guards saying they carried out a drone strike on a commercial ship in Bahrain, allegedly linked to Israel.
The war erupted more than a month ago with US-Israeli strikes on Iran that killed supreme leader Ali Khamenei, triggering a retaliation that has spread the conflict throughout the Middle East and convulsed the global economy.
The strike near the Bushehr nuclear plant killed a guard and led Russia, which partly constructed the facility and helps operate it, to announce it was evacuating 198 workers.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that continued attacks on the plant on Iran’s southern coast could eventually lead to radioactive fallout that would “end life in GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) capitals, not Tehran”.
Bushehr is considerably closer to Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar than it is to the Iranian capital.
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, wrote on X that no increase in radiation levels had been reported at the site, but voiced “deep concern” at the strike, which he said was the fourth such incident in recent weeks.
“NPP (nuclear power plant) sites or nearby areas must never be attacked,” he said.
There were also more strikes on Tehran, where an AFP journalist saw a thick haze of grey smoke covering the skyline.
“Things are really hard right now. You can’t even plan six hours ahead,” a 40-year-old photographer living in the capital told AFP.
“There’s really nothing we can do. We don’t have the power to change the situation,” said the man, who has been selling his belongings online to make ends meet.
Iranian and American forces, meanwhile, were in a race to recover a crew member from the first US fighter jet to go down inside Iran since the start of the war.
Tehran said on Friday it had shot down the F-15 warplane and US media reported United States special forces had rescued one of its two crew members, with the other still missing.
Iran’s military also said it downed a US A-10 ground attack aircraft in the Gulf, with US media saying the pilot of that plane was rescued.
Images posted on social media and verified by AFPTV showed Iranian police firing at a US helicopter in southwestern Iran as US forces searched for the missing airman.
Retired US brigadier general Houston Cantwell, who has 400 hours of combat flight experience, said a pilot’s training would likely kick in before he or she parachutes to the ground.
“My priority would be, first of all, concealment, because I don’t want to be captured,” he told AFP.
Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, mocked the Trump administration.
He wrote on X: “After defeating Iran 37 times in a row, this brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from ‘regime change’ to ‘Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?’
“Wow. What incredible progress. Absolute geniuses.”
Strikes by all sides have increasingly targeted economic and industrial sites, raising fears of wider disruption to global energy supplies.
US-Israeli strikes on Saturday hit a petrochemicals hub, a cement plant and a trade terminal on the Iran-Iraq border, where one person was reported killed.
Iran has retaliated with strikes on infrastructure against US allies in the Gulf region, as well as by virtually blocking the Strait of Hormuz — a vital waterway where one-fifth of the world’s crude oil and natural gas normally passes.
Shrapnel from intercepted drones injured four people in Bahrain on Saturday.
Separately, two buildings in Dubai were hit by debris, including one housing the US cloud computing firm Oracle, authorities in the United Arab Emirates said.
On their Sepah News website, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also said they had targeted a commercial vessel, the MSC Ishyka, “owned by the Israeli regime and flying the flag of a third country” at the Khalifa Bin Salman port in Bahrain.
