DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran acknowledged “attacks on power infrastructure” during the U.S. airstrike campaign for the first time Friday, showing the escalation in the American campaign.
Iran’s Energy Ministry issued a call for people to use less power in southern provinces.
It said those areas “are currently experiencing extreme heat and attacks on power infrastructure.” The ministry did not elaborate on whether it was power plants, transmission lines or other equipment that had been attacked.
U.S. President Donald Trump had threatened to go after bridges and power plants as America vies with Iran over control of the Strait of Hormuz.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States expanded its airstrike campaign against Iran early Friday by hitting more bridges and collapsing a tower at a key Iranian port, part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to start striking infrastructure to pressure Tehran to ease its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran launched new missile attacks against U.S.-allied nations in the Middle East, including Qatar, a key mediator in the war.
The interim ceasefire agreed to last month has collapsed, and the region has endured days of back-and-forth attacks by the U.S. and Iran as they battle for control of the strait. Iranian officials say U.S. strikes have killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds of others, with new casualties reported in Friday’s strikes.
When the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic, a move that sent the price of oil soaring and gave Iran major leverage in negotiations.
Speaking in a primetime address to the American public, 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,” Trump said.
Bridges and a port tower hit in Iran
The U.S. airstrikes hit bridges overnight into Friday in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, killing at least seven people, 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.
While other routes still are open, the U.S. strikes could expand further, potentially disrupting both the movement of military materiel and goods needed for Iran’s 90 million people.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said it hit dozens of targets in its latest airstrikes, which concluded at dawn Friday, the sixth night in a row of American attacks.
The strikes also collapsed a tower at Iran’s Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman, a key trade route for landlocked, neighboring Afghanistan, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared the image of the surveillance tower collapsing, part of his effort to assert American control over the strait. That image had circulated social media via activists prior to Hegseth sharing it.
Chabahar port, which Iran had been running with support from India, has been a repeated target of American airstrikes. Iranian state media acknowledged a third round of strikes on the facility without immediately acknowledging the tower’s collapse.