The U.S. struck three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday after Iran launched ballistic missiles toward two Navy warships, including an aircraft carrier, according to U.S. Central Command, as the fight to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz intensifies.

"A U.S. aircraft carrier and guided-missile destroyer successfully evaded multiple unprovoked Iranian attacks," Centcom, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said.

The U.S. began attacking Iranian tankers earlier this week as part of a new strategy to punish Tehran and crack down on its ability to ship oil, according to U.S. officials. American forces also struck two tankers Tuesday amid a broader wave of strikes, according to a video released by Centcom.

The tanker attacks come after the U.S. said it had cleared sea mines from main shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz, and as the White House says the military is helping more ships transit the oil-rich Persian Gulf laden with crude. The U.S. blockade of Iranian ports remains in effect.

Iranian state media reported that one oil tanker was struck overnight near Kharg Island, where Iran stores and loads most of its crude exports.

The U.S. said it had disabled that tanker, as well as a tanker near Iran's Jask oil terminal. Additionally, the U.S. "completely destroyed" an unladed tanker in the Gulf of Oman, striking it multiple times to render it inoperable after the crew was directed to abandon ship, Centcom said.

The latest bout of fighting in the waterway comes after the U.S. and Iran exchanged heavy fire there earlier in the week as the two nations battle to control it.

Iran began attacking ships in the corridor in the early days of the war, and it resumed doing so after signing a preliminary deal with the U.S. in mid-June to open the strait in protest at U.S. efforts to guide ships through it.

In recent days, Iran struck two tankers carrying Saudi Arabian oil within minutes of each other while trying to make a midnight crossing of the strait.

Both were traveling through the corridor the U.S. has set up close to Oman's coast to break Iran's chokehold on the waterway.

Iran also hit a Kuwaiti tanker a week earlier, one of more than a dozen it fired on in August.

The U.S. says it is shepherding several ships a day through the strait to help ease pressure on global oil supplies. The ships typically cross at night with their transponders off to make them hard to track.

The military said in late August that Navy SEALs backed by other forces had successfully demined the waterway, part of an effort to get more ships past the Iranian chokehold.

The U.S. launched a wave of airstrikes along Iran's Persian Gulf coast in the past week-the first in a month-showing its determination to win the contest for control over Hormuz.

They included strikes on air defenses, radar sites, communication infrastructure and maritime assets, the military said.

The U.S. had avoided responding to Iranian attacks on ships through August as it shifted away from military action in favor of relying on economic pressure to squeeze Iran. But that restraint had worried Gulf allies whose economies are being hurt by the fighting and attacks on their oil exports.

Iran's grip on Hormuz, which before the war was the gateway for a fifth of the world's oil, has been a major source of leverage for Tehran in the war and the talks to end it.

Its own oil exports have been bottled up for weeks by the U.S. blockade while Gulf oil exports are managing to get through, raising the pressure on the regime.