HEADLINES IN BRIEF

The US airstrikes hit bridges overnight into Friday in Iran's southern Hormozgan province. READ MORE BELOW

US strikes collapse a tower at Iran's Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman. READ MORE BELOW

Iran retaliates by targeting Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. READ MORE BELOW

Some oil shippers are transiting the strait with their location devices turned off. READ MORE BELOW

Iran strikes eastern Syria, in the first such attack during the current war. READ MORE BELOW

British police charge a man on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service, and the investigation related to Iran.

IN DETAIL

Bridges and 'electrical infrastructure' hit in Iran

The US 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 US strikes could expand further, potentially disrupting both the movement of military materiel and goods needed for Iran's 90 million people.

Iran also acknowledged "attacks on power infrastructure" during the US airstrike campaign for the first time on Friday when its 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.

Such strikes on power infrastructure had been suspected for days.

Tehran city councilman Mehdi Chamran told journalists asking about electrical problems on Tuesday, "Just look at how many power facilities they hit… and you wouldn't be asking that question".

Tower at key port collapses in US strike

The US 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.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared the image of the surveillance tower collapsing, part of his effort to assert American control over the strait.

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.

Iran described the tower as overseeing commercial traffic into the port. However, Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard also operates at ports across the country.

As of 6am on Friday, the US strikes had killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 400 in Iran, Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour said.

Iran retaliates by targeting Qatar

On Friday, Qatar twice warned the public to take shelter as a barrage of Iranian missiles targeted the nation. People heard explosions overhead as air defenses fired to intercept the missiles. Qatar's Interior Ministry said falling debris wounded a child.

Qatar, along with Pakistan, is a key mediator in trying to reach an end to the Iran war. But talks have broken down over Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran also targeted Bahrain and Kuwait early on Friday. Jordan's military said it intercepted three incoming missiles Friday morning launched by Iran.

One of Kuwait's power generation and water desalination stations was hit in an Iranian attack, causing damage to facilities, a fire and the disruption of a large number of electricity generation units, Kuwait's Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy said.

Explosions also could be heard on Friday morning in Irbil and Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region as air defenses targeted incoming fire.

The attack apparently targeted the Iranian Kurdish dissident group Komala, killing at least nine people and wounding others, said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Iran did not immediately claim the attack but has targeted Komala in the past.

Also on Friday, a tanker came under attack traveling through the Strait of Hormuz taking the route closest to Oman, the British military said. The report from the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said the ship sustained minor damage without any of its crew being injured.

Iran has been attacking tankers traveling on the route near Oman but did not immediately acknowledge any attack.

Strikes come as Iran and US vie for Strait of Hormuz

US President Donald Trump has returned in recent days to his threats to target Iranian power stations and bridges to try to compel Iran to loosen its hold on the strait, through which about a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded once passed in peacetime. The US also reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports to halt its shipments of crude oil.

Week-to-week cargo shipments through the strait dropped by almost a quarter at the beginning of the month, according to maritime data firm Lloyd's List Intelligence. And that was before the recent surge in violence.

Given the risks, some oil shippers are transiting the strait with their location devices turned off, but many are just staying put, Lloyd's said on Thursday.

A growing amount of the region's energy is being shipped through pipelines, but not nearly enough to offset the decline in shipping through the strait.

US forces have redirected three commercial vessels trying to run the blockade, disabled one that did not comply and boarded another.

Iran strikes eastern Syria, in first such attack during current war

Iran struck eastern Syria on Friday, Iranian state media and a Syrian military source said, in the first known attack by Tehran on Syrian territory since a regional war erupted earlier this year.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had attacked a US special operations command centre at al-Tanf in Syria in retaliation for the killing of Iranian soldiers in Iranshahr, state media reported.

A Syrian military source told Reuters news agency that Iran had carried out an attack near Tanf but that it had not hit the base itself. The source said there were no casualties or material damage.

The US military said in February it had completed a withdrawal from the al-Tanf base positioned at the tri-border confluence of Syria, Jordan and Iraq.