Iran tells citizens to turn off AC to preserve power grid, blames US strikes for strain
Sweltering Iranians were warned by their rulers Friday to shut off their air conditioners during peak hours as the regime claimed the country’s power grid came under strain from US attacks.
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Tehran’s Ministry of Energy said in a statement that shutoffs were necessary “to help ensure a stable electricity supply in the southern provinces, which are currently facing extreme heat and attacks on electricity supply facilities.”
The statement did not specify whether power plants, transmission lines or other equipment had been attacked.
CENTCOM declined to say whether the US military hit Iranian power plants or other energy targets, but a White House official denied to the BBC that any civilian infrastructure was struck.
“[US forces] carried out strikes exclusively on military targets, including military logistics infrastructure,” the person said.
Temperatures in the Iranian capital hit triple digits on Friday with highs of 102 expected on both Saturday and Sunday.
In the port of Bandar Abbas, focus of the latest American bombing campaign, temperatures were predicted to hover in the high-90s and top out at 105 on Sunday.
President Trump on Wednesday pledged to begin bombing Iranian energy infrastructure next week if Tehran continues resisting US demands.
“Next week it gets really bad for them,” Trump told Fox News. “We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.”
Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran program director Behnam Ben Taleblu told The Post that Tehran — not the US — is responsible for the crisis, and it’s not the first time they’ve ordered their citizens to go without A/C.
“They are saying that now and have said before. They try to get people to conserve when the government doesn’t,” he said. “But in official talking point, blame is being shifted on to the US.”
“They will have a combination environmental and economic crisis anyway, since those were unresolved things from pre-January protests,” he added, referring to the widespread protests in Iran this year against the regime.
Other infrastructure has also been struck. Overnight US strikes into Friday hit road and rail bridges with the goal of cutting off Bandar Abbas from the rest of Iran.
The attacks also collapsed a tower at Iran’s Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman, a key trade route for landlocked, neighboring Afghanistan, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
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Chabahar, which Iran had been running with support from India, has been a repeated target of American airstrikes.
Friday marked the sixth consecutive day of US airstrikes, which Iran’s Health Ministry claims has killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 400.
Tehran retaliated by attacking US partners in the region with missiles and other projectiles. In Kuwait, authorities said Iran attacked a power and water desalination plant, causing widespread damage to the station.
About 90% of drinking water comes from desalination — and any disruption can threaten life.
The Kuwaitis said they had extinguished the blaze and were working to assess the damage and get the station working again.
In Qatar, the public was warned twice to take shelter as air defenses fired to intercept the missiles. Doha’s Interior Ministry said falling debris wounded a child.
Jordan’s military said it intercepted three incoming missiles Friday morning launched by Iran.
Explosions also could be heard Friday morning in Irbil and Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region as air defenses targeted incoming fire. The attack apparently targeted the Iranian Kurdish dissident group Komala, killing at least nine people and wounding others, said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Iran did not immediately claim the attack but has targeted Komala in the past.
Also on Friday, a tanker came under attack traveling through the Strait of Hormuz taking the route closest to Oman, the British military said.
The report from the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said the ship sustained minor damage without any of its crew being injured.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Navy (IRGC-N) warned Friday that “Americans are getting close to the zero hour” for purported strikes on US warships in the region, around the Gulf of Oman.
“The movements and equipment of the American terrorist army are under the supervision of the naval units of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the IRGC-N said in a statement released by Iranian media.
“Americans are getting closer to the zero hour for operations against [US Central Command] naval units in the region’s waters.”
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“Wait…” the statement ominously concluded.
The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
With Post wires
