(Updates with index/price moves and geopolitical news from the first paragraph.)

US equity indexes rose amid gains in technology and as crude oil declined following Washington's attempt to keep the Strait of Hormuz functioning freely by degrading Tehran's firepower to attack commercial ships in the critical waterway.

The Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.5% to 25,994.3, the S&P 500 climbed 0.5% to 7,516.34, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average marched 0.6% higher to 52,470.2 after midday Thursday. Technology and financials led the gainers, while a trio of decliners included energy.

US Central Command overnight hit 90 Iranian military targets, according to its social media post on X, after striking 80 on the previous night following Iran's attacks on three commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint for about a fifth of global crude oil flows.

Iran said it had attacked US military sites in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar in response to the new US strikes on infrastructure, according to reports from Reuters and Al Jazeera, a Middle Eastern broadcaster. Iran fired 10 ballistic missiles at Jordan's Azraq military base, Al Jazeera reported, citing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The IRGC launched the missile strike targeting the "US command-and-control center," Al Jazeera cited an IRGC statement carried by Iran's semi-official news agency, Fars.

"The question confronting traders is whether Iran is willing to return to large-scale kinetic war with the US and its allies if necessary to strengthen its claim of control over the Strait of Hormuz, something that it has apparently not been granted by way of any diplomatic negotiations so far," Thierry Wizman, global foreign-exchange and rates strategist at Macquarie, said in a note.

The front-month global benchmark North Sea Brent fell 0.7% to $77.42 a barrel, and the US West Texas Intermediate declined 1% to $72.77 a barrel.