The Unit­ed States has grad­u­al­ly ex­pand­ed the scope of its at­tacks against Iran over the course of two weeks of pun­ish­ing airstrikes that in­creas­ing­ly re­sem­ble the war’s open­ing salvos.

Af­ter a brief cease­fire in June fol­low­ing the sign­ing of an in­ter­im deal to end the con­flict, a bat­tle for con­trol over the Strait of Hor­muz erupt­ed, shat­ter­ing the truce and push­ing the coun­tries back to the precipice of an all-out war across the Mid­dle East.

The U.S. start­ed off with in­tense waves of strikes on Iran’s navy and coastal de­fences ear­li­er this month, aim­ing to blunt Tehran’s abil­i­ty to at­tack ships in the strait vi­tal to world en­er­gy sup­plies. In re­cent days, the U.S. has ex­pand­ed its tar­gets, hit­ting bridges and in­fra­struc­ture in the south and strik­ing deep­er in­to the cen­tre of Iran and the out­skirts of its cap­i­tal, Tehran.