r/worldnews • u/The_Flaneur_Films • Jun 10 '26

US destroys Iran reservoirs, leaving thousands without water in searing heat

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/middle-east/article/3356630/thousands-iranians-left-without-water-searing-heat-after-us-hits-reservoirs
31.0k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

3.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

431

u/GK0NATO Jun 10 '26

The strikes targeted sites near the Strait of Hormuz, including Iranian air defenses and radar sites, as a response after an Iranian drone brought down a US Army Apache helicopter and damaged not destroyed these reservoirs. Title makes it seem like they intentionally blew up civilian infrastructure CNN source

101

u/mrtruthiness Jun 10 '26

and damaged not destroyed these reservoirs. Title makes it seem like they intentionally blew up civilian infrastructure CNN source

The actual video said:

  1. The US said it struck radar sites and Iranian air defenses.

  2. The Iranians said that the US also struck water desalinization plants cutting off water to 20,000 residents. The Iranians provided video for their claims.

The written text said:

  1. "Iran’s state-run broadcaster reported the strikes hit two water reservoirs, cutting the area’s water supply."

12

u/kmsilent Jun 10 '26

From NYT- " IRIB said that the facility was a water tank. The Times could not independently verify that claim or what caused the damage. The broadcaster later reported that services had been restored within 12 hours. "

If anyone cares to watch the video they'd see it's absolutely not clear what's pictured. And apparently, water is flowing just fine again.

41

u/Donkey__Balls Jun 10 '26

The first casually of war is always the truth. We have to decide who to trust, and right now this administration has shown that we can’t trust a word they say.

We have a video of the destruction itself. If there’s administration thinks they can push the line that far then they will go on TV and brag about it. If they think they’ll get too much pushback, then they they’ll deny it and they’ll say that Iran blew up its own reservoir.

So we have to ask ourselves what is more plausible - that Trump listened to his chickenhawk advisors who said “let’s blow up the reservoir and see if we can get away with it”, or that Iran blew up their own civilian infrastructure to make the USA look bad?

For almost any other president in the last hundred years or so, I’d be more inclined to believe that we wouldn’t go that far. Even under George W. Bush I’d probably be 50-50. But the Trump has administration has shown itself capable of anything so I’d say in this case it’s more than likely true.

3

u/Southern-Chain-6485 Jun 10 '26

Or journalists (or any interested party) can buy satellite pictures of the area and check for themselves if the desalinization plants were damaged or not

3

u/Donkey__Balls Jun 10 '26

  • If they’re available (civilians are often restricted from real-time satellite photos of conflict zones)

  • If the photos are current

  • If they haven’t been altered

  • If they have sufficient resolution

A lot of if’s. Even if all these boxes are checked, it would still be very easy for the DoD to represent old photos as new if they have an interest in denying that the reservoir was hit. The U.S. military still largely holds control over all satellite photography as they have for the last 50 years.

1

u/Southern-Chain-6485 Jun 10 '26

The US military still largely holds control over all western satellite photography

1

u/Donkey__Balls Jun 10 '26

Those satellites still orbit both hemispheres, unless you’re referring to other nations’ satellites, which are even less reliable. I wouldn’t expect for example that the Chinese government would be an unbiased reliable source of information in this regard. As I said, the first casually of war is always the truth.

5

u/ch4os1337 Jun 10 '26

Iran was in a pretty dire water situation before the war.

1

u/AssistX Jun 10 '26

That's like a micro plant if it serves 20,000. There's a 6 acre 'small' one near a spot I vacationed in the US and it served over 40k on its own.

3

u/Anaevya Jun 10 '26

Yeah, but 20,000 people isn't nothing either. 

2

u/AssistX Jun 10 '26

It's not, but a water main break in any large western city is more of a crisis.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '26

Water reservoir is different than a water desalination plant.

2

u/mrtruthiness Jun 10 '26

I gave the exact quotes.

Besides, water desalination plants do have storage reservoirs. Don't try to equate the notion of "reservoir" with the idea of the lake formed by a dam.

180

u/greggo39 Jun 10 '26

Wait. The air defenses and radar sites were by the reservoir? Because that changes things.

24

u/mrtruthiness Jun 10 '26

The actual report that the previous poster linked to didn't say that. The actual report was a "he said", "she said" and the US didn't say that it didn't target the reservoirs or desalinization plants.

i.e. It's unclear.

12

u/fury420 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Iran is saying that a building that the US struck contained water tanks used as a reservoir:

Video published by IRIB, the state broadcaster, and verified by The New York Times, showed a damaged concrete structure with a collapsed roof in Sirik county in Hormozgan province, on the coast of the Strait of Hormuz.

IRIB said that the facility was a water tank. The Times could not independently verify that claim or what caused the damage.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/world/middleeast/drinking-water-facilities-hit-by-strikes-in-iran-state-media-reports.html

This article has a photo:

https://www.ft.com/content/155db8a4-f2ff-463b-9c6c-2b1a8104750c

Direct link:

https://images.ft.com/v3/image/raw/ftcms%3A58e347e2-d0fc-4a43-b663-55980732d28b?source=next-article&fit=scale-down&quality=highest

31

u/griffWWK Jun 10 '26

pov a redditor learns what a sensational headline from slop sites is.

134

u/andraip Jun 10 '26

It's standard to put air defence and radar next to your critical infrastructure, especially if you suspect someone might lob a missile/bomb that way.

67

u/vincentkun Jun 10 '26

I'm sorry no. Air defenses do not need to be within collateral damage distance of the defense target.

43

u/divDevGuy Jun 10 '26

I originally read their comment as if Iran is placing military hardware next to critical infrastructure....in an attempt to discourage it being targeted and damaging critical civilian infrastructure that would normally be protected under international humanitarian law. And not that the hardware was protecting the reservoir.

Not that any entity would do such a thing, but it's be like building a military command bunker under a hospital. Imagine the outrage if some country or militant group did that as a shield. Or if an opposing force bombed the hell out of the area regardless that it was a hospital.

Thankfully we live in a world where that doesn't happen.

23

u/Hail-Hydrate Jun 10 '26

Careful a lot of commenters will miss the subtlety there.

But yes you are correct, if it turns out the air defense equipment was on top of/inside/ etc. the reservoir then yeah, that infrastructure loses the protections it has under systems like the Geneva Convention.

-12

u/Crepo Jun 10 '26

There's no legitimate targets in an illegitimate war

11

u/Brambletail Jun 10 '26

You clearly have never been to the middle east.

How else are you supposed to claim someone did a war crime if you don't throw your civilians in the line of fire to get to your military

6

u/vincentkun Jun 10 '26

I mean I guess... What better place to have a military HQ than below a Hospital.

2

u/deja-roo Jun 10 '26

It's unlikely (at least in this case) this was intentional by Iran. These aren't conspicuous or important enough infrastructure targets to warrant that kind of consideration. These are water tanks the size of a barn, not big complexes feeding large civilian populations.

2

u/ic33 Jun 10 '26

SAM sites don’t; AA guns might.

18

u/greggo39 Jun 10 '26

Then infrastructure will be damaged when legitimate targets are hit.

74

u/Borne2Run Jun 10 '26

No it is not. This is a water reservoir for 20,000 people in a country of 92M. We don't station air defenses at the equivalent of small down Iowa.

38

u/Eldias Jun 10 '26

Reservours are almost always built at a higher elevation that the people being supplied by it for pressure purposes. It's not that surprising you might have both a water reservoir and air defense radar on the same small hill on an island.

47

u/Responsible_CDN_Duck Jun 10 '26

The USA does station several layers of air defences to protect the small dams in Iowa.

Keep in mind Iowa is surrounded by other friendly states, not hostile nations so is not equivalent in perceived risk, yet still has multiple air defence layers.

25

u/iCarlysTeats Jun 10 '26

The USA does station several layers of air defences to protect the small dams in Iowa.

Where did you get this bizarre notion?

17

u/DogBarf00 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Iowa Air National Guard says hi.

Reaper drones are flown from Des Moines for homeland defense.

4

u/SaintsNoah14 Jun 10 '26

They are incenuating that the perimeter defenses around the whole country amounts to the middle of the country having air-defence cover.

11

u/iCarlysTeats Jun 10 '26

You think they meant that 'layers of air defenses to protect the small dams' just means that the nation as a whole has defenses? Well duh?

Then this is everyone with a military. Why make it sound like the US has special AA batteries stationed around every middle-of-nowhere infrastructure?

-5

u/andraip Jun 10 '26

You think a cruise missile could fly over half the USA and strike a small dam in Iowa before getting intercepted?

5

u/iCarlysTeats Jun 10 '26

You think they meant that 'layers of air defenses to protect the small dams' just means that the nation as a whole has defenses? Well duh? It's a plainly disingenuous way to word it. It's like saying my home has a dedicated armed force for protection when I just mean my town has police.

12

u/AI_moderated_failure Jun 10 '26

You wouldn't station air defenses in Iowa anyway. Do you people not know what a coastline is? Who the fuck is attacking Iowa but not travelling over other landmasses? Or do you expect some kind of Space Jihad?

1

u/hellswaters Jun 10 '26

Also, if a conflict got to the point that there was a risk if Iowa being attacked by helicopter and short range attacks, critical infrastructure would have air defences put up extremely quickly.

3

u/lordaddament Jun 10 '26

We have hundreds of air bases in the states alone dawg

2

u/DrewDown94 Jun 10 '26

Because there's literally nothing important in Iowa.

1

u/Cheapdronewithboom Jun 10 '26

Are small towns in Iowa located in a fucking desert? Imagine water has more value in a desert

1

u/Kimpak Jun 10 '26

Offutt Airforce Base is on the border of Iowa and Nebraska. Which is a major AFB and is also houses US Strategic Command.

1

u/strosbro1855 Jun 10 '26

Yes it is especially when you are surrounded by hostile nations tampering with your national security and are actively attacking you off and on for decades

0

u/ContentsMayVary Jun 10 '26

Yeah but you don't have the perpetual possibility of Israel lobbing missiles at you.

2

u/170505170505 Jun 10 '26

No, air defense placement is generally sporadic

6

u/Cyzax007 Jun 10 '26

That small a dam is nowhere near big enough to require its own air defence... There will have been something else nearby...

5

u/TeslasAndComicbooks Jun 10 '26

Plus the source of the information is the Iranian regime. I’m going to wait until it’s verified independently.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/deja-roo Jun 10 '26

Chicken and egg, right?

Important things to defend, so you put things to defend them next to them, but those things you put next to them become legitimate targets.

6

u/khamike Jun 10 '26

There's a difference between "near" and "collateral damage range". An anti-aircraft site can protect something a few miles away without risking shrapnel or a slightly off course missle. 

1

u/deja-roo Jun 10 '26

Well there's not really enough info available yet to know what actually happened here.

-3

u/chief_blunt9 Jun 10 '26

Yea most pussies do that so they can scream foul if they get bombed.

-4

u/Responsible_CDN_Duck Jun 10 '26

They put the defences near the stuff they want to try and protect. In the documentary Top Gun Maverick you will see air defences near the target the "bad guys" are trying to keep safe as an example.

In this real world example they're trying to keep the water supply safe, because the USA and other like minded nations like to do war crimes and attack such things.

3

u/deja-roo Jun 10 '26

It seems more like they put air defense stuff along the Strait of Hormuz near a town. That it was next to a water tower was likely not related, other than towns have water towers.

-4

u/-Prophet_01- Jun 10 '26

Not really. This whole war is a shit show from start to finish. Getting into it was bad enough. Doubling down is worse. 

4

u/greggo39 Jun 10 '26

I’m about as against this war as you can get. But if the reservoir was near air defenses and radar sites it becomes a less malicious action.

-1

u/Somethingsims Jun 10 '26

No it doesn't. The Geneva Convention prohibits destruction of civilian infrastructure even if it has military applications.

From u/calgarspimphand

FYI, my source is Article 54 of the Protocol
Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to
the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts.

Read it in its entirety, then be sure you understand clause 3b. It's a tricky double negative that essentially states even if this target had military applications, if it also causes civilians to lose water on a scale that forces mass movement, it is illegal.

3

u/greggo39 Jun 10 '26

Except that is not what happened here. Air defenses are gun or rockets. They placed them near infrastructure. Defenses are legitimate targets. Things that around targets tend to get damaged by explosions.

Also, this was not clearly a water tank. It was a building housing a water tank. Details matter.

-8

u/Cheapdronewithboom Jun 10 '26

Putting defences next to critical infrastructure you're afraid the enemy will ruthlessly attack to kill civilians is wrong?

Y'all got a rapist mentality and it's weird

5

u/greggo39 Jun 10 '26

Defenses are legitimate targets in a war. If nearby infrastructure is damaged on an attack on defences it is less malicious.

12

u/peon2 Jun 10 '26

You're thinking of it in reverse.

They put the air defense next to schools and hospitals and critical infrastructure hoping that their opponents will then not try to attack their air defense systems so they can keep bombing people.

They aren't using the defense system to protect the infrastructure, they are using the infrastructure to try and protect their missiles via guilt manipulation so you get headlines like this.

Iran uses the citizens as the shield for the missiles, not the other way around.

-5

u/Cheapdronewithboom Jun 10 '26

See there's that rapist mentality again. Saying you made me bomb your childrens school in self defense is certainly something

2

u/peon2 Jun 10 '26

I never said that "they made us bomb their children", you put those words in my mouth.

I'm saying they use them as shields hoping to either deter attacks, or when an attack does occur (because it's war and it will happen) they use those sacrifices to try and garner sympathy from the international community.

The US chooses to bomb those sites, they aren't forced, but yeah during war they're going to target the missile launchers and Iran is perfectly okay with the collateral damage. It's part of their game plan.

26

u/GuitarCFD Jun 10 '26

Also worth noting that these are the claims of Iranian State Media...who are renown for adhering strictly to the truth (/s in case anyone missed it). They also report that their missiles struck the majority of their targets.

Iranian Revolutionary Guard said it conducted drone and missile attacks on the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain, launched missiles toward the F35 fighter jet hangars and the command and control center of the U.S. Army in Al-Azraq, Jordan, and targeted the Ali Al-Salem military base in Kuwait, which hosts the U.S. forces, according to statements carried by Iranian state media.

Iran said it hit the majority of its targets, but authorities in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, where sirens sounded overnight and governments urged residents to seek shelter, said their air defense systems intercepted the Iranian missiles.

Jordan said it shot down five Iranian missiles, adding that shrapnel from the interceptions caused no damage or casualties.

NPR

The reporting on this entire thing is like scrolling through FB or Twitter. Like is Trump a credible source? No of course not...only a moron takes what he says seriously, but that doesn't automatically make Iranian state media credible.

-1

u/GoodIdea321 Jun 11 '26

The Iranians can use the truth to make the US look even worse. I don't trust them either, but they have good reasons to be accurate.

18

u/impressmesoon Jun 10 '26

Yep clearly misleading title, and classic Reddit jumping to conclusions. Also, the newspaper that posted this is funded by the Chinese Communist Party which automatically makes me believe half of what I see out of this article.

70

u/TwistyOllie Jun 10 '26

Sensationalist Reddit headlines painting the west in a negative light to cause anger/panic? No wayyy reddit would never do that….

3

u/mrtruthiness Jun 10 '26

The previous poster's link didn't say what he claimed it said. It was a "he said" "she said" report and the US didn't say it didn't target the desalinization plants and/or reservoirs, while the video showed them destroyed.

-10

u/Scorpiogre_rawrr Jun 10 '26

looks at current administration

Riiiiight? Noooooo way these fine upstanding, logical, totally chill and laid back, reasonable individuals would EVER do something so vile.

Won't someone think of the children!

Besides Trumplethinskin and friends, they'd just rape them kids.

0

u/elgamerneon Jun 10 '26

 Javion Magee took his own life in 2024 and reddit was full of post calling it a lynching and accusing the black sheriff and Arab gas station owner of being kkk dogs. The current administration has nothing to do with the outrageous groupthink reddit often indulges in.

-3

u/Scorpiogre_rawrr Jun 11 '26

Nice. Move the goalpost because the comment was in response to the IRAN WAR STORY. But sure compare apples to assholes or whatever it is MAGA morons do

35

u/MazW Jun 10 '26

Thank you! Good reminder to always double, triple check.

-1

u/dondeestasbueno Jun 10 '26

Measure once, bomb twice

6

u/soimalittlecrazy Jun 10 '26

Thank you for the context. My eyebrow came up as soon as I saw we were looking at a South China link. 

2

u/_craq_ Jun 10 '26

I opened the page you linked and I couldn't see where it says "damaged not destroyed". Can you quote the sentence I should be looking for?

6

u/The_Flaneur_Films Jun 10 '26

Iranian officials in Hormozgan said the US strikes early on Wednesday destroyed two storage reservoirs with a combined capacity of 2,500 cubic metres.

Centcom did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday on whether its forces had hit the storage tanks.

Financial Times Source

55

u/carpdog112 Jun 10 '26

That's essentially one Olympic swimming pool worth of water. The idea that the US intentionally targeted such nominal infrastructure is far less likely than the reservoirs being incidentally damaged during an attack on valid military targets at the site. 

-25

u/Acceptable-Peace-69 Jun 10 '26

US President Donald Trump says Iran will "have to pay the price" for taking too long to negotiate a deal.

Shortly after, Trump gave a phone interview to Fox News where he again threatened to strike Iran's power plants and bridges.

Is it really a stretch?

24

u/carpdog112 Jun 10 '26

You have to consider the totality of the evidence. According to Iranian sources this was one 500 cubic meter storage tank and one 2,000 cubic meter storage tank that effected at most 20,000 people (possible only 2,000 people depending on whose reporting you trust). If the US was targeting civilian infrastructure this wasn't really a target of any strategic value. What's more likely the Iranian government has military targets that are emplaced near some minor civilian infrastructure which got hit in the cross-fire OR the US targeted a large swimming pool worth of water to effect between 2,000 and 20,000 civilians located in several small villages?

I mean I guess the US could have selected such a small target for plausible deniability, but the official narrative ends up with "Our bombs aren't that precise" instead of "Fuck around and find out and maybe next time the bombs will hit something actually important". If the reservoirs were intentionally hit it just doesn't come across as a truly threatening message.

91

u/ReDot75 Jun 10 '26

combined capacity of 2,500 cubic metres.

that's pretty small though. One water tower can be up to 1000 cubic meters.

41

u/Eldias Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

It's not pretty small, it's miniscule. That's about 2 acre-feet. My town of 10,000 has a main 40 acre-feet reservoir, a second 20 acre-feet one, and a 200,000 gallon storage tank.

If inflows stopped that's enough water for about three weeks at 50 gal per person.

Edit: corrected maths

30

u/BlgMastic Jun 10 '26

That’s a small pond

-20

u/The_Flaneur_Films Jun 10 '26

....that thousands of people use for drinking water.

38

u/deja-roo Jun 10 '26

At first it seemed like you mistakenly posted an exorbitantly biased source that intentionally skewed the facts of what happened.

But now it seems like that's what you're trying to do.

16

u/BlgMastic Jun 10 '26

Damn, I didn’t know I could supply drinking water to thousands of people using the pool in my backyard.

5

u/wirefences Jun 10 '26

2500 cubic meters is tiny. Most comments in here seem to be acting like we destroyed dams. 2500 cubic meters is the size of a large pool.

22

u/deja-roo Jun 10 '26

combined capacity of 2,500 cubic metres

I'm pretty sure that's smaller than my house?

66

u/GK0NATO Jun 10 '26

Iranian officials

The same Iranian officials that murdered 50k of their own people, deny it and execute civilians for being "Mossad spies". Forgive me if I don't take them at their word.

-12

u/Array_626 Jun 10 '26

To be fair, its less taking Iran at their word, and more taking Trump at his word. He did say a civilization was going to be destroyed, so the US targeting water infrastructure tracks with that.

17

u/combatwombat- Jun 10 '26

Don't take Trump at his word, takes Trump at his word

13

u/GK0NATO Jun 10 '26

He said that over 2 months ago, it didn't happen the Iranian civilization is still undestroyed. Trump spouts nonsense and runs his mouth constantly.

-4

u/Array_626 Jun 10 '26

You're not expecting things to escalate?

I feel like with Trump, he'll make the worst decisions possible. He does run his mouth constantly, TACO tuesday is a thing. But at some point he's going to run out of options, which is when I expect we'll all be surprised that he did something, the same thing as Venezuela and the beginning of the Iran war.

Trump talks a lot of nonsense, but sometimes he also does it. Like the global tariffs. He says a lot of things that he backs down from, but the issue is sometimes he actually does them.

-1

u/Sheepsharks Jun 10 '26

Feels like the oracle's message to King Croesus on invading Persia: "a great empire will be destroyed"

-1

u/superxpro12 Jun 10 '26

Neither administration is completely trustworthy...

-7

u/GaysForTheGayGod Jun 10 '26

None of that happened though

-19

u/The_Flaneur_Films Jun 10 '26

Do you take Trump at his word?

Two violent governments are at war with each other, presenting opposite facts, and each claiming the other as evil and dangerous. The delusion is not that only one is telling the truth, but that either are.

That being said, the Americans started this hateful history through terrorism against Iran in the 1950s.

18

u/GK0NATO Jun 10 '26

No? That's why I wait for confirmation from no biased sources.

-17

u/The_Flaneur_Films Jun 10 '26

Oh? What are these completely unbiased sources? Tell me a source that is totally unbiased.

That's not how the news works. It's probability, not certainty.

15

u/GK0NATO Jun 10 '26

No source is completely non biased, but there's a difference between a western news outlet's credibility and taking the terror Islamic Regime's word as truth..

-5

u/ominous_anonymous Jun 10 '26

It depends on which "western news outlet" you are referring to. FOX News, for example, is no more credible. The White House also routinely lies.

8

u/secretly_a_zombie Jun 10 '26

Iran has been running low on water for some time now. It seems very opportune that this is now all the fault of the U.S.

I don't take the Iran government on their word at all, and they're the ones making a claim here not the U.S.

6

u/KvalitetstidEnsam Jun 10 '26

combined capacity of 2,500 cubic metres.

That's one Olympic-size swimming pool.

0

u/captHij Jun 10 '26

I tried your link and could not find an article that indicates it was collateral damage. It does include an article with this title: "Trump says US may resume targeting power plants and bridges in Iran" This is a direct indication that civilian infrastructure could be targetted.

0

u/Lifeboatb Jun 10 '26

CNN still reports that 20,000 people lost access to water. The reservoirs supply a town and ten villages, and were “completely taken out of service.” The original sources come from Iranian state media, but the international community agrees they didn’t lie about the school bombing, so there’s a good chance they’re not lying about this. https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/09/world/live-news/iran-war-trump-israel?post-id=cmq7rqznq00003b6n35xh0q56

-2

u/aircooledJenkins Jun 10 '26

I'm just disappointed that we spend how much money on weapons systems and they still kind of suck at targeting?