The United States and Iran exchanged strikes aimed at infrastructure and military targets on Saturday as their battle over the Strait of Hormuz intensified.
The region has endured days of back-and-forth attacks in a conflict increasingly focused on control of the strait. The collapse of an interim ceasefire leaves no clear end in sight for the war that the US and Israel began more than four months ago.
The US Central Command said early Saturday that its seventh straight night of strikes had hit “surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities.”
Kuwait said Saturday it was intercepting Iranian missiles and drones, while Iraq said it had shot down attack drones over the city of Irbil. Jordan's state-run Petra news agency said that the kingdom's air defense systems had downed Iranian missiles, while air sirens sounded in Bahrain according to the government there.
Iranian officials say recent US strikes have killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds, with new casualties reported Friday, when the US military also acknowledged more injured service members.
Iran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic after the war started Feb. 28. That sent the price of oil soaring and gave Iran significant leverage in negotiations. The price of oil rose Friday above $86 a barrel, close to its highest level in a month, as crossings through the strait fell to a three-week low, according to an international shipping tracker.
In an address to the American public on Thursday evening, Trump insisted the war was going well. “We are likewise winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly,” he said.
Before the war began, the US had been in talks with Iran over its nuclear program. Trump now faces political pressure to bring the war to a close and avoid the kind of prolonged Middle East conflict he had campaigned against.
According to Reuters, Iranian media reported on Saturday that several missiles struck power facilities and desalination pumps in the southern Iranian city of Jask, citing a local official. The official said drinking water had been cut off in villages in Jask due to the attack.
The US said its forces redirected four commercial vessels, disabled one, and boarded another to enforce its naval blockade of Iran.
In turn Iran's Revolutionary Guards said four vessels violating its rules on shipping traffic were stopped from going through the strait with a combined missile and drone operation.
In addition, Iranian media, citing Iran's Revolutionary Guards, reported that two oil tankers exploded and caught fire after passing through a mined route south of the strait. The US military labelled that report as false.
Iran's state television quoted the Revolutionary Guards as saying that until US "aggression" comes to an end, it will not be possible to export chemical fertilizers or even a "single drop of oil and gas" from the region.
The US airstrikes had hit bridges in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, Iranian state television reported. The attacks hit Bandar Khamir, a city on Iran’s coast on the Strait of Hormuz.
The highway and railway bridge strikes appeared aimed at cutting off Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port, from roads leading into Iran’s central region onward to Tehran, the capital.
Iran acknowledged “attacks on power infrastructure” during the US airstrike campaign for the first time Friday when its Energy Ministry issued a call for people to use less power in southern provinces "experiencing extreme heat.”
The ministry did not specify what was hit.
Iranian authorities said at least 46 people have been killed and more than 400 wounded in recent US strikes, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge Friday.
US officials acknowledged 13 additional US service members — 10 Army soldiers and three Navy sailors — had been injured since Monday, but offered no further details. Since the war began, 14 US service members have been killed and 427 wounded, The Associated Press reported.
On Friday evening Iranian state media reported explosions around Iran, including in the central and south of the country. Local authorities said the US attacked around Ahvaz city without elaborating. IRNA also reported the sound of explosions in Lar, Yazd and Sirik.
