The U.S. military confirmed late Thursday that it had wrapped up another round of strikes against Iran, carried out under orders from President Donald Trump — the seventh night in a row that American forces have launched attacks.
According to a statement from U.S. Central Command, the assault involved a combination of fighter jets, aerial drones, and warships, along with additional military assets.
The targets struck included, in the military’s words, “surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities.”
Iran responded by launching its own strikes against U.S. allies in the Gulf on Friday, as both sides continued to go after infrastructure. Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz also came under further attack.
Iranian state media reported that at least five bridges in the country’s southern region were destroyed in U.S. strikes on Friday. Seven people were reported dead following attacks on bridges in the southern port city of Bandar Khamir, where the train station was also hit. An airport in Iranshahr — a city in a province along the border with Pakistan — was also reported struck.
On the other side, authorities in Kuwait, a U.S. ally, said that one of the country’s facilities for generating power and desalinating water was damaged in an Iranian attack.
Trump, meanwhile, repeated his threats this week to target Iranian energy infrastructure and warned that bridges could be hit as soon as next week. Those threats have drawn scrutiny from legal experts, who noted earlier this year that striking civilian-essential sites could constitute war crimes under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which prohibit attacks on infrastructure that civilians depend on.
Trump drew widespread international criticism in April after threatening to destroy Iran’s entire civilization, though a ceasefire with Tehran was eventually reached at that time.
The current conflict traces back to February 28, when the U.S. and Israel jointly attacked Iran. Iran responded with strikes on Israel and on Gulf states that host American military bases. Since then, U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed thousands of people and forced millions from their homes.
The war has also driven up oil prices and sent shockwaves through global financial markets.
