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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- The United States and Iran escalated their attacks across the Middle East on Friday, trading strikes aimed at infrastructure and military targets as their battle over the Strait of Hormuz intensified.
The U.S. expanded its attacks against Iran by hitting more bridges and energy sites and collapsing a tower at a key Iranian port, following through on President Donald Trump's threats to pressure Tehran to ease its chokehold on the waterway vital to world energy supplies.
In response, Iran launched missiles into U.S.-allied nations in the Mideast, including Qatar, a mediator in the war, and Kuwait, where one of the desert nation's water desalination plants was damaged.
The region has endured days of back-and-forth attacks in a conflict increasingly focused on control of the strait, and the collapse of an interim ceasefire leaves no clear end in sight for the war that began more than four months ago. The U.S. Central Command said late Friday it had launched its seventh straight night of attacks aimed at degrading Iran's military.
Iranian officials say recent U.S. strikes have killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds, with new casualties reported Friday, when the U.S. military also acknowledged more injured service members.
In a statement early on Saturday, the Iranian military claimed that two oil tankers exploded and caught fire as they attempted to transit a mined route in the Strait of Hormuz. It did not provide further details, and the U.S. denied the report. "This is false," CENTCOM said in a social media post.
Iran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic after the U.S. and Israel launched the war on 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 U.S. 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.
Bridges, 'electrical infrastructure' hit
The U.S. airstrikes hit bridges overnight into Friday 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 the Islamic Republic's central region onward to Tehran, the capital.
Iran acknowledged "attacks on power infrastructure" during the U.S. 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 U.S. strikes, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge Friday.