Donald Trump has claimed responsibility for the destruction of Iran’s largest bridge, the newly built 136-meter-high, $400 million B1 suspension bridge between Tehran and Karaj. This admission came a day after he threatened to bomb the country “back to the stone ages” if a deal to end the five-week-long war he initiated was not reached. Footage shared by the US president showed a section of the bridge dramatically collapsing onto the causeway below amidst a plume of black smoke. Iranian state media in Karaj reported that eight people were killed and 95 wounded in the incident, with the middle of the bridge struck twice, leaving a clear gap in what was one of Iran’s premier infrastructure projects. Trump posted on Truth Social, stating, “The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again,” and warned of “much more to follow” without a settlement.

The US president’s actions and rhetoric are set against the backdrop of a war launched by the US and Israel against Iran on February 28. In a primetime speech, Trump declared this conflict a success “nearing completion,” asserting that the US would “very shortly” achieve nearly all its strategic objectives. He also reiterated a threat to destroy Iran’s power plants, potentially cutting off electricity to millions, stating, “We are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously.”

The attack on the B1 bridge was one of several confirmed strikes in Iran this week, despite the authorities’ internet shutdown making information difficult to obtain. Notably, footage of a major strike on a missile base in Isfahan was confirmed as genuine, showing fiery plumes and secondary explosions from a nearby car, with the driver expressing surprise at the attack’s scale. Isfahan is also a critical location where Iran is believed to have moved some or all of its 440kg stockpile of 60% enriched uranium. This amount could theoretically be used to make ten nuclear bombs if enriched to 90%, assuming Tehran still possesses the necessary technology. Speculation in the US has suggested Trump considered a high-risk airborne raid to seize this radioactive material, though he later dismissed the idea, stating late on Wednesday that it was buried so deeply that “I don’t care.”

While most observers took Trump at his word, the US president has a history of misdirection. The war commenced on February 28 with a US and Israeli attack that killed Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and several associates, occurring at a time when negotiations for a new nuclear deal were thought to be progressing. Iran also reported that the Pasteur medical institute in Tehran was hit on Thursday. Concurrently, Israel claimed it had struck a headquarters used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to finance armed proxies across the Middle East the day before.

In response to these escalating attacks, Iran vowed to conduct “more crushing, broader and more destructive” assaults in the future. Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters, declared that the war would continue until the “permanent regret and surrender” of Iran’s enemies. However, Iran has suffered significantly more than the US and Israel, enduring over 15,000 bombing raids since the war’s inception. According to a rough estimate by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, at least 1,900 people have been killed and 20,000 injured in Iran since the conflict began.

The ongoing conflict has also had broader global repercussions. Oil prices jumped by 7% a barrel to $108, with no immediate signs of the fighting abating. António Guterres, the UN secretary general, issued a grave warning that the world is “on the edge of a wider war” with catastrophic global implications, as he urgently called for an end to the hostilities.