Attacks on Iran Intensify Ahead of Trump Deadline To Reopen Strait of Hormuz

Latest Developments

• Bombs Fall Across Iran: Strikes against Islamic Republic targets intensified on April 7 as President Donald Trump’s 8 p.m. ET deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz loomed. According to Iranian media, strikes targeted power lines, a petrochemical plant, and an airport. Unattributed explosions were reported on Kharg Island, which processes approximately 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports. The IDF confirmed that it had struck a petrochemical plant in Shiraz. 
• Israel Attacks Railroads in Iran: The IDF said it had targeted “sections of bridges and roads that the Iranian terrorist regime used for transporting weapons and military equipment.” Ahead of strikes, the IDF’s Farsi X account issued a warning to Iranian citizens to “refrain from using and traveling by train throughout Iran.” 
• Regime Pressures Youth To Act as Human Shields: Islamic Republic officials called on “young people” to form human chains around key infrastructure sites ahead of Trump’s deadline. “We hope that with the participation of young people across the country, the human chain will be formed around power plants, and it will be a sign of the youth’s commitment to protecting the country’s infrastructure,” said Supreme Council of Youth and Adolescents Secretary Alireza Rahimi.

FDD Expert Response

“The Tehran regime’s call for ordinary Iranians to serve as human shields around power plants is consistent with a decades-long pattern of exploiting its own population as political cover. This has been witnessed on the battlefield, in sanctions evasion schemes where the Iranian people bear the economic cost of the regime’s illicit financial activities, and now around critical infrastructure that Iranians themselves have been denied reliable access to for years. A regime that has left its citizens without stable electricity, clean water, and an uncensored internet cannot suddenly invoke national assets. The last thing the Islamic Republic has ever protected is Iran’s national interest.” — Miad Maleki, Senior Fellow

“The regime in Tehran is dependent on energy exports to maintain its control over the rest of Iran. To protect its energy infrastructure, the regime plans to deploy human shields to discourage U.S. and Israeli military strikes. The White House must now walk a fine line between cutting off the financial lifelines that the regime in Tehran needs and destroying energy infrastructure that would have a major impact on the price of oil and require decades of reconstruction.” — Tyler Stapleton, Senior Director of Government Relations at FDD Action

FDD Background and Analysis

“5 Men Now Running Iran,” by Janatan Sayeh and Samuel Ben-Ur

“Iran’s Largest Petrochemical Complex Struck by IDF,” FDD Flash Brief

“UK Convenes Meeting on Reopening Strait of Hormuz as Trump Reiterates Warning to Iran in National Address,” FDD Flash Brief

“Iran and proxies fire fewer total projectiles, increase accuracy in attacks on region (March 28–April 1 updates),” by Ahmad Sharawi