Marines board tanker amid blockade of Iranian ports as US expands strikes with attacks on bridges

American forces boarded a ship in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday as part of the renewed blockade of Iran’s ports that began earlier this week, the US military said.US Marines boarded the M/T Wen Yao “to ensure full compliance with the ongoing US naval blockade,” US Central Command (Centcom) said in a post on X.Centcom also said it had “redirected” three commercial vessels “trying to run the blockade” since it took effect at 8pm GMT on Tuesday. The previous day, a US aircraft fired on and disabled an unladen oil tanker that tried to break the blockade.The boarding of the vessel came as the US expanded its airstrike campaign against Iran with attacks on multiple bridges, in line with Donald Trump’s threats to destroy infrastructure, prompting Tehran to fire on Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait.The Gulf countries, which host US forces, have faced repeated attacks in recent days after the interim deal to try to end the Iran war collapsed. In a primetime address to the US on Thursday night, Trump claimed the US was “winning big in Iran”, and that Americans “will see the fruits of that labour very, very shortly”.Iranian state media said US strikes on Thursday hit targets around Tehran and Semnan province, home to Iran’s ballistic missile production and space program.State media also reported strikes around the provinces of Hamedan, Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Markazi, and Sistan and Balochistan, as well as on Iran’s Qeshm island, near the strait of Hormuz.Seven people were wounded in a US strike that hit the Allah-Akbar Hill residential neighbourhood in the port city of Bandar Abbas, according to Iranian state media. Two others were wounded in a US attack on Bandar Abbas railway junction station, state media said. Just west of Bandar Abbas, witnesses reported two bridges were struck in a US attack, killing three and wounding nine others, state media said.Early on Friday, Kuwait said it was responding to missile and drone attacks, a day after it faced earlier aerial attacks from Iran. Agence France-Presse journalists in Doha reported hearing several blasts early on Friday, as officials in the Qatari capital warned the security threat level was “elevated”. In Bahrain, the interior ministry urged citizens to take shelter.Iranian state media said the Islamic republic’s army was targeting US helicopters and planes at an airbase in Bahrain “in response to the enemy’s hostile action in targeting urban infrastructure and innocent people”.Iran has asked its allies in Yemen, the Houthis, to be prepared to close the oil route through the Red Sea if the US targets Iranian energy infrastructure, Reuters reported – a threat that, if followed through, could paralyse the global energy market.The Houthi leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, also threatened that all Saudi oil and other critical facilities could be targeted by the group if Riyadh intervened in Yemen. The threat came after Saudi Arabia struck Sana’a airport, leading to retaliatory missile strikes from the Houthis on Saudi Arabia.Week-to-week cargo shipments through the strait of Hormuz 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 tit-for-tat attacks.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.Pakistan’s foreign ministry on Thursday said efforts were still under way to bring the US and Tehran to the negotiating table but acknowledged that was becoming increasingly difficult.Trump said on social media that Tehran made a goodwill gesture by releasing an American citizen wrongly detained in Iran since 2024. He did not release further details.Human rights lawyer Jared Genser released a statement identifying the detainee as his client Dena Karari, a US-Iranian citizen who runs a nonprofit and was charged with espionage.Iran’s judiciary, however, has challenged that account, saying no American prisoner had been released or exchanged from Iranian prisons, according to state media.With Associated Press and Agence France-Presse