Iran launched attacks on US military infrastructure ‌in Gulf states on Thursday in retaliation for US strikes on southern coastal and eastern provinces, as tensions escalated between the foes. Iranian officials said ⁠the attacks had killed 14 people and injured 78 across five provinces on Wednesday and Thursday. One US strike hit a rail bridge ​used for trade with Russia and China and others targeted bridges on the route to the holy city of Mashhad, where the late supreme leader was due to be buried, it was reported.The attacks came on the final day of mass funeral processions and rallies for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a shrine in Mashhad. He was killed in a US air strike on the first day of the war on February 28th.Khamenei’s body was carried by truck slowly through crammed streets towards the shrine of Imam Reza. Black-clad mourners waved Iranian flags and red placards with revolutionary slogans.Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard naval service said the US attacks and intervention in redirecting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz were disrupting the waterway’s gradual reopening.The guard said the number of vessels transiting the strait under Iranian supervision had recovered to about ​50 per cent of pre-war levels over the past two weeks.Any further US intervention will draw a “crushing response”, said the guard. The US military said on Wednesday that its latest strikes were aimed at keeping the strait ⁠open after it said Iranian forces had struck three tankers in the area. The assault came hours after US president Donald Trump said he believed the interim ceasefire with Iran to be “over”.Several explosions were reported in Iran’s Bushehr province and in Bandar Abbas, a port city on Iran’s south coast, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.Bushehr is home to a Russian-built ‌nuclear power plant and a local official later told state media that a ​US projectile had hit the perimeter area of the facility. The perimeter had already been hit several times before an April 8th ceasefire.[ US military says it has struck at 170 targets in Iran over the last 48 hoursOpens in new window ]Iran’s army said via state media that it had launched attacks at US Patriot systems in Kuwait, ⁠an early-warning site in Qatar and a US army fuel depot ​in Bahrain.Kuwait said its armed forces had engaged with a cruise missile, three ballistic missiles and 10 drones in its airspace, and that one person had been injured from falling shrapnel.Sirens also sounded in Jordan after missiles launched from Iran were detected, the state news agency reported. Eight were intercepted, with no injuries or damage reported.The guard later said Iran had fired 10 ballistic missiles at Jordan’s Azraq military base, which is used by US forces.Qatar, which hosts the largest US base in the region and has often mediated between Washington and its adversaries, including Tehran, condemned attacks on commercial shipping and called for a return to diplomacy. The foreign ministers of Turkey and Oman also stressed the need to avoid further military escalation in separate calls with their Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araqchi. In a call with the army chief of Pakistan, which has also mediated in the conflict, Araqchi condemned what he called US “warmongering policies”. US central ommand said on Wednesday its forces had struck ‌approximately 90 Iranian military targets, including air defence systems, coastal surveillance assets, and missile and drone storage sites.“This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will get much worse!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.However, the US leader, ​who was attending a Nato summit in Turkey, also said he did not think the latest military strikes would escalate into a full-fledged conflict with ​Iran.Asked before the Nato summit on Wednesday whether the memorandum of understanding with Iran was over, Trump said: “It’s a very interesting question. To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them.” – Reuters