The B1 bridge stood in a gorge west of Tehran, on the northern bypass connecting the capital to Karaj and onward to the Caspian coast. It was, by the measure that engineers care about, the tallest bridge in the Middle East -- its deck suspended more than 100 meters above the canyon floor, supported by piers that took the better part of a decade to construct. It was nearing inauguration. It carried no military traffic, because it was not yet open. On Wednesday night, U.S. forces struck it in two bombing runs. [1]

As this paper's lead reported today, the strike came hours before President Trump posted on Truth Social: "Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!" The B1 bridge was the first execution of that sequence. Stars and Stripes reported that the strike was "aimed at cutting drone and missile supply lines to Iranian firing units," a justification that frames a civilian highway as a logistics corridor. [1] The Pentagon has not elaborated. The bridge was under construction. It was not carrying drone shipments. It was carrying the ambitions of a country that wanted to reduce commute times between its two largest cities.

The Alborz provincial governor, Ghodratollah Seif, confirmed that the initial strikes killed at least two people and wounded several others, with the casualty count subsequently revised upward to eight dead and 95 injured as emergency crews reached workers and residents near the construction site. [2] The Telegraph reported that the bridge "was set to form part of a major highway connecting Tehran" and published photographs showing the midsection sheared away, the two halves sagging into the gorge. [3]

IranWire, the diaspora-run investigative outlet, noted that the B1 bridge was an "ongoing construction project" and that its destruction eliminated a piece of infrastructure that would have served millions of daily commuters. [4] The distinction between destroying a bridge that carries military traffic and destroying one that does not yet carry any traffic at all is the distinction between military necessity and collective punishment. International humanitarian law permits the former. The Geneva Conventions prohibit the latter.

Iran's foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, posted on X that "striking civilian structures, including unfinished bridges, will not compel Iranians to surrender. It only conveys the defeat and moral collapse of an enemy in despair." [5] The language was diplomatic. The photographs were not. The B1 bridge joins the Pasteur Institute, the steel plants, and the other bridges Trump confirmed destroying in his Fox News interview as evidence that the war has moved from military targets to civilian infrastructure -- not by accident but by announcement.

The gorge where the B1 bridge stood is still there. The concrete piers, a decade of engineering, are rubble at the bottom. The commuters who would have crossed it will take the old road, which adds 45 minutes to their journey. The war gave them nothing. It took their bridge.

-- Katya Volkov, Tehran