DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 The United States and Iran exchanged strikes aimed at infrastructure and military targets on Saturday as their battle over the Strait of Hormuz intensified.<\/p>\n
The region has endured days of back-and-forth attacks in a conflict increasingly focused on control of the strait<\/a>. The collapse of an interim ceasefire<\/a> leaves no clear end in sight for the war that the U.S. and Israel began more than four months ago.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n AP AUDIO: US and Iran escalate strikes across Mideast; bridges and a water plant hit\n <\/p>\n AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports the U.S. strikes bridges and collapses a tower at a key port in Iran.<\/p>\n The U.S. Central Command said early Saturday that its seventh straight night of strikes had hit \u201csurveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s state-run Petra news agency said that the kingdom\u2019s air defense systems had downed Iranian missiles, while air sirens sounded in Bahrain according to the government there.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Iran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic after the war started Feb. 28. That sent the price of oil soaring<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n In an address to the American public on Thursday evening, Trump insisted the war was going well. \u201cWe are likewise winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Before the war began, the U.S. had been in talks with Iran over its nuclear program<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n Bridges and \u2018electrical infrastructure\u2019 hit in Iran<\/p>\n The U.S. airstrikes had hit bridges in Iran\u2019s southern Hormozgan province, Iranian state television reported. The attacks hit Bandar Khamir, a city on Iran\u2019s coast on the Strait of Hormuz. <\/p>\n The highway and railway bridge strikes appeared aimed at cutting off Bandar Abbas, Iran\u2019s main port, from roads leading into the Islamic Republic\u2019s central region onward to Tehran, the capital.<\/p>\n Iran acknowledged \u201cattacks on power infrastructure\u201d 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 \u201cexperiencing extreme heat.\u201d The ministry did not specify what was hit. <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n U.S. officials acknowledged 13 additional U.S. service members \u2014 10 Army soldiers and three Navy sailors \u2014 had been injured since Monday, but offered no further details. Since the war began, 14 U.S. service members have been killed and 427 wounded.<\/p>\n