The Iranians claim to have repaired the Agh-Tappeh Khan railway bridge in Golestan Province within 13 hours after it was hit by a U.S. air strike on July 8. While initial reports indicated that the damage to the bridge disrupted passenger traffic from Tehran to Mashhad, where the burial of Ali Khamenei was set for the next day, it turns out, according to a report in WANA, that the bridge is far more significant even than that.
The bridge is “a strategic link on the China–Turkmenistan–Iran rail corridor used for trade between China, Russia, and Iran,” WANA says, citing an unnamed report. “The bridge is located on the international China-Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Incheh Borun [Incheh Borun is a city in Iran on the border with Turkmenistan—ed.] railway route, which enters Iran through its northeastern border and connects Gorgan, which borders Turkmenistan, to Tehran. The route forms part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), extending from Xi’an, China to Tehran.
“According to the report, at least 65 freight trains traveled from China to Iran via the corridor last year. Following the maritime blockade of Iranian ports, foreign media reported that rail traffic on the route tripled.
“The report also states that Russia began transporting goods to Iran through the same railway corridor in November 2025, leading analysts to describe the strike as more than a conventional military attack.
“The attack marks one of the deepest U.S. strikes inside Iranian territory since the start of the conflict. Since the ceasefire, U.S. operations had primarily focused on military targets in southern Iran near the Strait of Hormuz, making the targeting of infrastructure near the Turkmenistan border a notable shift.”
Majid Nili, Iran’s ambassador to Germany, underscored the strategic importance of China-Turkmenistan-Iran in a message to Europeans warning that normalizing the White House’s crimes guarantees no one’s security. He said that the United States targeted the Agh-Tappeh-Khan Bridge, a bridge that is not merely a railway structure, but part of a vital international transport and trade route, reported IRNA. Addressing certain European politicians, Ambassador Nili said that if the warmongering American attack on transport corridors goes unpunished and uncondemned today, tomorrow they will easily target other corridors from which Europe, too, benefits.
