Explosions rock Iran’s Kharg Island after US-Israeli strikes

Explosions were heard on Iran’s Kharg Island in the Gulf following US-Israeli airstrikes, Iranian media reported on Tuesday. Mehr News Agency said US and Israeli warplanes carried out several airstrikes on the island, causing multiple explosions. No details were yet available about casualties or damage. Power was cut off on the island following a wave of US strikes targeting more than 50 sites, according to US and Iranian media reports. Iranian outlets said the power outage came after heavy US attacks on the island. The Wall Street Journal said that US fighter jets bombed more than 50 military targets on the Iranian island. A ​US ​official told Reuters ‌that the strikes ​did ​not ⁠impact oil ​infrastructure. Separately, Israeli airstrikes targeted 10 railway lines and bridges across Iran, hours after Israel threatened attacks on rail infrastructure across the country. Army Radio claimed that the attacks targeted sites allegedly used to transport weapons and missile launch platforms. Iranian media reported US-Israeli strikes on railway infrastructure in multiple areas of the country. No information was yet available about casualties or damage. The attacks came hours after the Israeli army warned Iranians not to travel by train and avoid train stations across the country. Read: Iran targets major Saudi petrochemical complex as Trump threatens to eliminate 'whole civilisation' tonight Trump's ultimatum US President Donald Trump has issued an ultimatum for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and threatened to bomb Iranian power plants and bridges if it doesn't by Tuesday, 8pm EDT. President Trump was on the verge of a crisis in the Iran war, faced with the rare instance of an American airman shot down and stranded ​deep inside enemy territory. Then, the airman's daring Easter weekend rescue gave the US president the chance to quickly flip the script. Standing ‌before cameras on Monday, Trump recast the perilous operation as a providential military triumph, leaning in to its cinematic elements to project strength and command of a five-week-old war that remains deeply unpopular with US voters. Iran has conveyed its response to the US proposal for ending the war to ​Pakistan, rejecting a ceasefire and emphasising the necessity ​of a permanent end to the war, the official IRNA ‌news ⁠agency said on Monday. Trump has threatened to rain "hell" on Tehran if it ​did not make a deal by 8pm ⁠EDT that would allow traffic to start moving again through the vital route for global energy ⁠supplies. A scrubby island in the Gulf that is roughly one-third the size of Manhattan, Kharg Island is the nerve centre of the Iranian oil industry — and at the heart of Trump’s latest efforts to pressure Tehran. On March 30, Trump vowed that a failure by Iran to agree a deal to end the war could see the US “completely obliterating” the export hub.