President Donald Trump celebrated a strike on a highway bridge near Tehran, Iran, on Thursday, warning on social media that there was “much more to follow.”

The attack on the B1 bridge between Tehran and the shores of the Caspian Sea killed eight people and wounded 95, according to Ghodratollah Seif, the deputy governor of Alborz province.

A U.S. military official said that U.S. forces had struck the bridge, eliminating what the official called a planned military supply route for Iran’s missile and drone forces. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to share operational details.

Seif told state media that the bridge was not yet operational and that “there was absolutely no military activity on bridge B1.” He said the casualties were people from a nearby village who were picnicking outdoors in celebration of the last day of Nowruz, the Persian new year.

The bridge is part of an ambitious highway project intended to connect Tehran to the Caspian Sea, giving motorists an alternative to windy mountainous roads. The highway is used regularly for commerce and by many Iranians who travel back and forth for weekend getaways.

Trump’s post on Truth Social was accompanied by a video of an explosion on or near the bridge and a large plume of smoke rising into the sky. With the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran now in its fifth week and showing little sign of abating despite Washington’s diplomatic overtures to Tehran, Trump urged Iran’s government to “MAKE A DEAL BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE, AND THERE IS NOTHING LEFT OF WHAT STILL COULD BECOME A GREAT COUNTRY!”

The Israeli military said in a briefing to reporters Thursday that it was not responsible, and that the bridge had been a U.S. target.

Trump has threatened to destroy all power plants and other infrastructure in Iran if its leaders did not agree to a peace deal and end their military’s de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for regional oil exports.

Some experts in the law of armed conflict say that a country’s infrastructure could be considered a legal and legitimate target if that infrastructure is used by its military or plays a role in military operations. The legality would vary on a case-by-case basis.

“Whether the bridge was a lawful military objective would depend on the facts,” said Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who specialized in the law of armed conflict and who now works at the International Crisis Group. “My read is that bridge was targeted not to provide any military advantage but in the hopes of coercing Tehran and generating content.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Euan Ward, Edward Wong, Parin Behrooz and Farnaz Fassihi/Doug Mills
c. 2026 The New York Times Company