United States President Donald Trump on Monday stated that during a past military operation on March 13, the US attacked Iran’s Kharg Island and destroyed nearly all structures on the island, sparing the oil facilities.
“We left the pipes. We didn’t want to do that, but we could do that on 5 minutes notice,” Trump said.
Trump said the decision to leave the oil infrastructure intact was strategic, made with the possibility of ‘someday rebuilding Iran’ in mind.
The United States carried out strikes on March 13 on Kharg Island. According to CENTCOM, the overnight operation destroyed naval mine storage sites, missile storage bunkers and several other military installations, with US forces striking more than 90 Iranian military targets on the island while deliberately avoiding oil assets.
Kharg Island, is central to Iran’s oil system since it hosts the main terminal that oversees the country’s oil exports. Roughly 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports pass through Kharg Island, which has massive storage facilities and loading jetties capable of handling supertankers.
During the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), Iraq repeatedly struck Kharg in an attempt to strangle Iran’s war economy. Iran managed to keep it partially operational.
In the ongoing US-Israel attacks on Iran, Kharg is among key oil-related assets, another being the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s traded oil passes.
Earlier, Trump said on Saturday said that the United States may hit Iran’s Kharg Island a few more times “just for fun”, a day after he said American forces had “obliterated” targets on the Islamic Republic’s “crown jewel”.
Notably, Iran claimed that the US used “ports, docks and hideouts” in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to carry out strikes on Kharg Island. The authorities also called on people to move away from locations where it said US forces were taking shelter.
US Central Command said on Saturday morning that it carried out “precision strikes” on 90 military targets while “preserving the oil infrastructure.” Later that day, Trump said, “We totally demolished Kharg Island, but we may hit it a few more times just for fun.”
“We’ve totally decimated it,” the president said in an interview with NBC News.
“Except, as you know, I didn’t do anything having to do with the energy lines, because having to rebuild that would take years,” he added.
Iran’s armed forces said that any strike on the country’s oil and energy infrastructure would lead to attacks on facilities belonging to oil companies working alongside the US in the region, local media reported.
