The US carried out fresh strikes in Iran on Wednesday, the US military said, further intensifying a five-month-old war that was already expanding beyond its main fronts to embroil additional countries in the region.“U.S. forces began launching strikes against Iran at 8:00 p.m. ET today (0000 GMT),” US Central Command said in a statement.“The strikes are a powerful response to yesterday’s attempted Iranian attacks on U.S. forces based in the Middle East.”Earlier on Wednesday, a drone hit a US-owned gas storage tanker at Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta, British maritime security firm Ambrey said in an initial assessment, while US and Saudi forces launched strikes against Iran-aligned groups in eastern Iraq and Iran fired missiles at US troops in Jordan.A statement from Egypt’s petroleum ministry confirmed a fire at the port but made no mention of a drone attack. It was not immediately clear who was responsible.The latest strikes in Iraq and Egypt threatened to draw more Middle Eastern countries into the conflict, after the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen last week declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia.The US strikes in Iran on Wednesday followed President Donald Trump’s vow earlier in the day to retaliate against Iran for firing on US troops.“So it’s our turn,” Trump told reporters at the White House, promising to “hit them very hard” even as he again said Washington would continue to aim for a peace deal with Tehran.Iran confirmed overnight that it had fired on US bases in Jordan and at ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and also spurned an Omani proposal to jointly manage the strait, a critical global shipping route for oil and gas.The war began in February, when the US and Israel launched a bombing campaign in Iran that Trump said would last only a few weeks. A temporary ceasefire agreement in June collapsed amid renewed fighting over the strait, which Iran says it now controls.Oil prices shot up on Wednesday in one of the sharpest spikes of the five-month war. Brent crude futures rose more than 8% to push the benchmark well above $90 a barrel, reversing much of a plunge earlier this week when Trump had unexpectedly halted US strikes.