Trump says US will destroy a bridge or power plant for each Iranian attack in the Strait of Hormuz

U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has warned Iran that the U.S. will de­stroy one bridge or pow­er plant each time Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hor­muz.

The warn­ing came af­ter the U.S. car­ried out an­oth­er wave of strikes on Iran, where air de­fens­es opened fire over the cap­i­tal, Tehran. Iran launched a mis­sile at­tack on a Jor­dan­ian city on Is­rael’s doorstep, and alerts were is­sued in Bahrain and Sau­di Ara­bia.

In his warn­ing on so­cial me­dia, the pres­i­dent re­turned to ear­li­er threats to tar­get civil­ian in­fra­struc­ture in re­tal­i­a­tion for Iran­ian at­tacks.

“From this point for­ward, any time the Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hor­muz, whether it be by Mis­sile, Rock­et, Drone, or any oth­er de­vice or weapon, the Unit­ed States will bomb and de­stroy ONE BRIDGE OR POW­ER PLANT,” Trump wrote on so­cial me­dia.

The 11th night of Amer­i­can airstrikes on Iran came as diplo­mat­ic ef­forts have shown lit­tle pub­lic sign of progress. Of­fi­cials on both sides have dug in on their dis­pute over the Strait of Hor­muz, a cru­cial wa­ter­way for glob­al en­er­gy that re­mains large­ly closed be­cause of Iran­ian at­tacks.

Iran has avoid­ed strik­ing Is­rael since hos­til­i­ties re­sumed last month, ap­par­ent­ly hop­ing to keep it from reen­ter­ing the war. But the mis­sile and drone at­tack on Jor­dan’s city of Aqa­ba, with­in sight of Is­rael’s Eilat, raised con­cerns over a fur­ther widen­ing of the con­flict af­ter an agree­ment to halt hos­til­i­ties col­lapsed.

The clo­sure of the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s trad­ed oil and gas passed dur­ing peace­time, has jolt­ed the world econ­o­my with ef­fects far be­yond the Mid­dle East. A new threat by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen to tar­get Sau­di ship­ping in the Red Sea puts an­oth­er trade choke­point at risk.

Bench­mark Brent crude oil rose to around $94 a bar­rel in trad­ing, and gaso­line prices are once again climb­ing ahead of U.S. midterm elec­tions this fall.

At­tacks shake Iran and Jor­dan

Jor­dan’s mil­i­tary said it in­ter­cept­ed four Iran­ian mis­siles over Aqa­ba, while two oth­ers fell in “un­in­hab­it­ed ar­eas.” Plumes of smoke could be seen over­head in videos filmed by peo­ple in the near­by Is­raeli city of Eilat. Jor­dan said it al­so in­ter­cept­ed four Iran­ian drones.

An­oth­er mis­sile alert sound­ed in Bahrain, and Sau­di Ara­bia warned res­i­dents of the Per­sian Gulf city of Dammam to seek shel­ter. Sau­di au­thor­i­ties lat­er said the dan­ger had passed, with­out elab­o­rat­ing.

The U.S. mil­i­tary said ear­li­er Wednes­day that it had com­plet­ed an 11th night of strikes on Iran, with tar­gets in­clud­ing air­craft hangars and drone stor­age sites.

Iran’s state-run IR­NA news agency re­port­ed ex­plo­sions across sev­er­al provinces. Iran’s Health Min­istry says U.S. strikes over the past 11 days have killed 53 peo­ple, in­clud­ing six women and three chil­dren, and wound­ed near­ly 600 peo­ple.

Iran’s para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard in­sist­ed its re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks would con­tin­ue.

The war has late­ly been fo­cused on the Strait of Hor­muz

Be­fore the lat­est strikes, Iran­ian In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter Es­kan­dar Mo­meni vis­it­ed Pak­istan, a key me­di­a­tor in the con­flict, seek­ing to re­vive diplo­ma­cy. But it was un­clear what new arrange­ment might be reached to end the war, which late­ly has be­come a bat­tle for con­trol over the Strait of Hor­muz.

Iran’s In­te­ri­or Min­istry spokesman Ali Zeini­vand said “diplo­ma­cy isn’t called off” and that mes­sages were still be­ing ex­changed, with­out elab­o­rat­ing, ac­cord­ing to IR­NA.

At a re­gion­al sum­mit in the Philip­pines, U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio de­nounced Iran’s ac­tions in the strait.

“If we cre­ate a prece­dent in the Mid­dle East where a na­tion state can de­cide that they are go­ing to con­trol an in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ter­way, charge a toll and if you don’t pay them, blow up your ships, we have cre­at­ed a very dan­ger­ous prece­dent which will re­peat it­self in oth­er parts of the world, in­clud­ing in this re­gion,” he said.

In re­sponse to Iran’s at­tacks, the U.S. re-im­posed a block­ade on Iran­ian ports.

Trump sig­nals US may at­tack un­der­ground nu­clear site

Speak­ing from the Oval Of­fice on Tues­day, U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump gave a dim view on pos­si­ble talks, say­ing the U.S. had “no in­ter­est in meet­ing.”

He sig­naled that U.S. forces could soon tar­get an un­der-con­struc­tion Iran­ian nu­clear site buried deep un­der a moun­tain.

The site, known as Pick­axe Moun­tain, lies on the south side of Iran’s Natanz nu­clear en­rich­ment site, which was bombed by the U.S. dur­ing the 12-day war be­tween Iran and Is­rael in 2025. But Pick­axe Moun­tain has re­mained un­touched as Iran con­tin­ues to dig at the site.

Iran has al­ways in­sist­ed its nu­clear pro­gram is peace­ful, while re­sum­ing the en­rich­ment of ura­ni­um to near weapons-grade lev­els since Trump scrapped a 2015 nu­clear deal dur­ing his first term. The U.S. and oth­ers be­lieve Iran had a nu­clear weapons pro­gram un­til 2003 and may re­con­sti­tute it in the fu­ture. —DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP)

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Sto­ry by JON GAM­BRELL and COLLIN BINK­LEY

Collin Bink­ley re­port­ed from Wash­ing­ton. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Bassem Mroue in Beirut, and Michelle L. Price and Jim Gomez in Mani­la, Philip­pines, con­tributed to this re­port.