.jpg&w=1440&q=75)
Iran's security council secretary, Major General Rezaei, said cables, data centres and AI facilities in the region could be targeted if war resumes, according to a Persian-language state media on October 22.
He said the US holds valuable assets in the region and that Iran would have a broader plan if fighting restarts. He said the enemy's AI facilities are among its targets.
Rezaei's latest threats widen the likely theatre from tankers and energy sites to the cables and computing capacity that link the Gulf to global networks, which sources close to the Tehran government have had on the cards since February's flare-up between the US and Iran, according to previous IntelliNews reporting.
Rezaei said the Strait of Hormuz is under Iranian control and that Iran manages it. He said Iran has targeted an average of five vessels a night over the past two or three months, which he called smugglers' vessels and linked to the commander of US Central Command and to UAE military forces. The claims are unverified.
He said the main issue in Hormuz is security. Iran could charge for security, insurance, and environmental costs, he said, though managing the strait matters far beyond revenue.
"Everyone must understand that action against Iran has a cost. If diplomacy can create that understanding, we prefer diplomacy. But if the war continues, Iran has the tools to continue to be held accountable," he said, local Khabaronline reported him as saying.
In an interview with Western blog Drop Site, he said anyone acting against Iran should know it carries a cost.
Iran prefers diplomacy if it can establish that understanding, but has the tools to keep responding if the war continues.
He said Iran did not use its full capabilities in earlier phases, raising them in line with the intensity of the war, and is ready for the next stage.
Rezaei said the war has shifted relations in Iran's favour. Gulf states are quickly redefining their ties with Tehran, he said, having concluded that the US military cannot defend even its own bases, which they had expected it to do for them.
The US has reinstated a blockade on Iranian shipping and says it has diverted 70 ships. Oman has kept to a line of Swiss neutrality as the conflict has escalated.
If the current situation continues, Rezaei said, energy markets will not calm for the next three years.
IRGC navy said on October 22 that four vessels it described as violators were hit simultaneously while transferring oil ship to ship in the northern Persian Gulf, and that they are burning. It added three more vessels struck mines west of the Strait of Hormuz on the night of October 21 and were stopped.
A separate incident was reported off Oman on October 21, with the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency (UKMTO) saying a tanker was hit by an unknown projectile 11 nautical miles off Bukha, near the strait, and caught fire.
On October 19, UKMTO reported an “interaction involving military forces” involving a tanker about 121 nautical miles east of Duqm in Oman.
The next day the IRGC navy said a supertanker carrying more than 2mn barrels of crude hit a naval mine south of the strait while trying to leave by an “unauthorised southern route”, having switched off its radar and navigation systems, according to Anadolu Agency and IRIB.