US launches seventh night of strikes as Iran attacks military sites

Bombing intensified in the Middle East for the seventh consecutive night, with Iran reporting three deaths from U.S. strikes and retaliating with attacks on several U.S. military sites in Kuwait and Jordan.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Saturday that two oil tankers directed by "deceptive American intelligence agencies" exploded after hitting mines in the Strait of Hormuz, which the U.S. military quickly denied.

The Revolutionary Guards also said on state television they "stopped" four ships trying to transit the critical waterway.

U.S. forces, meanwhile, reported striking Iran with attacks designed to "continue degrading Iranian military capabilities," according to a statement by U.S. Central Command shared on X.

In the biggest escalation since the foes resumed hostilities, Iran accused U.S. forces of targeting civilian infrastructure, including an airport, a railway station, and two bridges, and said it had struck U.S. assets across the region.

U.S. President Donald Trump has previously threatened to hit Iranian infrastructure, but there was no confirmation from the U.S. side on Friday that U.S. forces have begun to do so.

Major General Mohsen Rezaei, a senior military advisor to Iran's supreme leader, said Tehran will resume "full-scale offensive operations" if U.S. strikes against it continue for another two or three days.

"Iran will no longer limit itself to retaliatory, like-for-like responses...and no political border will be safe," Rezaei said, according to the Iranian news agency IRIB.

The war began on February 28 with deadly U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, which retaliated by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping channel for much of the world's oil, and launching attacks on Israel and American interests across the Gulf.

Iranian state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday that U.S. attacks killed three people and wounded eight in the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan.

Iran's army said it struck U.S. military targets in Kuwait and Jordan in response to American attacks, according to a statement carried by the Iranian state broadcaster on Saturday.

In Kuwait, Iranian forces targeted an ammunition depot in the Al-Adiri camp, the headquarters buildings and ammunition depots in the Ali Al-Salem base, and several communication bridges.

In Jordan, fuel tanks at the Al-Azraq base were also targeted, the state broadcaster said on Telegram.

David Khalfa, a Middle East specialist at the Jean-Jaures Foundation, a Paris-based think-tank, noted that a "widening range of strategic infrastructure" is now being drawn into the conflict.

"The paradox is that, while the conflict continues to escalate, neither side has a strategic interest in allowing this dynamic to continue. Yet both perceive any compromise as a form of capitulation," Khalfa told AFP.

AFP