US Strikes Iran a Third Day, Projectile Falls Near Bushehr Plant

For Serbia, whose oil imports and part of its maritime trade pass through the wider Persian Gulf region, every fresh strike on the Iranian coast is not merely a distant Middle East headline but a question of fuel prices and the stability of energy flows in the weeks ahead. The war between the United States and Iran has entered its third consecutive day, and the most serious signal came from Bushehr, where, according to Iranian authorities, a US projectile fell on the perimeter of the country’s only civilian nuclear power plant.

US Central Command, CENTCOM, launched a new wave of strikes overnight into July 14 that lasted about five hours and hit a string of targets along the southern coast. Beyond Bushehr, the strikes fell on Chah Bahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa and Bandar Abbas, while explosions were also reported on the islands of Kish and Qeshm. This marks an expansion of the operation compared with earlier reports, when the main targets were Sirik and Bandar Abbas.

What does a projectile on the Bushehr perimeter mean?

Bushehr deputy governor Ehsan Jahanian said a US projectile had landed on the plant’s perimeter, adding that it was not yet clear whether the facility itself or only the surrounding belt had been damaged. Bushehr is Iran’s only civilian nuclear plant and sits on the Persian Gulf coast, along a stretch that carries a significant share of the world’s oil shipping, so a strike in the immediate vicinity of such a facility adds a new dimension of risk to an already tense situation.

The mere fact that combat operations are edging closer to a nuclear installation changes the logic of escalation. While previous waves targeted military bases, ports and fishing piers, the proximity to Bushehr raises the question of how Tehran will interpret the move and whether it will frame it as crossing a red line that demands a response of a different order of magnitude. Iranian authorities have so far insisted there are no major civilian consequences, but the fact that the plant is being discussed at all is enough to raise the temperature of every diplomatic exchange.

President Donald Trump said Iran’s capabilities were, as he put it, being degraded, while at the same time leaving the door open to negotiations, judging that a deal remains possible. He also threatened a strike on Pickaxe Mountain, a site Washington suspects of concealing a nuclear facility, making clear that the target list is not closed.

How did Washington justify reopening the conflict?

Trump informed Congress that the conflict had resumed because of Iranian attacks on merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz, alongside the termination of a Memorandum of Understanding that had governed part of the earlier relationship. Hormuz is a narrow maritime gateway through which a huge share of the world’s oil exports passes, so any attack on vessels through that strait immediately becomes a global issue rather than a bilateral dispute between two countries.

The United States presents this reasoning as a defense of freedom of navigation and protection of civilian mariners, while Tehran views the strikes as aggression against its own territory. Between these two readings lies the space in which a diplomatic channel could function, but only if both sides conclude that the cost of further destruction outweighs the cost of a concession. For now, a third day of strikes shows that such a calculation has not yet been made.

Will the proximity of the Bushehr plant push Washington and Tehran toward a negotiating table, or will that very move drive the conflict into an even more dangerous phase?