The US and Iran have traded strikes for a second night, as observers report a "dramatic" drop in the number of ships travelling through the Strait of Hormuz since hostilities resumed.

The US military says it struck some 90 military targets, some near the Strait. Iranian authorities say 14 people have been killed in the past two days.

Iran reported explosions in several coastal areas and said it targeted US assets in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar in response.

Iran's foreign ministry denounced the US strikes as a "gross war crime", saying it said targeted civilian infrastructure including railway bridges.

In a statement, the ministry described the US administration as "evil and psychopathic" and that it condemned the attacks which have damaged bridges and a railway route connecting Tehran to the city of Mashhad, where the late supreme leader Ali Khamenei is due to be buried at a funeral service later on Thursday.

Iran's Ministry of Health says 14 people have been killed during this latest round of fighting.

Hossein Kermanpour, head of public relations at the ministry, said US attacks targeting five provinces in Iran over 8 and 9 July have also injured 78 people, of whom 47 remain in hospital.

Gulf nations reported Iranian attacks following the US strikes, with explosions in Bahrain's capital Manama, Kuwait intercepting missiles and drones, and Qatar issuing a security alert.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has confirmed that it launched retaliatory strikes on US military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain overnight, and called them the "first phase of the punitive response against the American treaty-breakers".

Iran's parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is also the country's chief negotiator with the US, said on X that America "still hasn't learned that bullying and breaking promises are no longer cost-free".

"Let me put it plainly: if you strike, you'll get hit," he wrote, adding that the Strait of Hormuz will only open under Iranian arrangements - not "American threats".

US Central Command (Centcom) said the most recent round of strikes was carried out to "further degrade Iran's ability to attack commercial shipping and innocent civilian mariners" in the vital waterway.

In a statement it said it had struck 90 Iranian military targets, which included air defense systems and military logistics infrastructure along Iran's coastline.

"The latest strikes follow successful execution of offensive strikes in Iran the night before," Centcom added.

(Source: BBC)