(AFP) – Iran threatened Saturday to reduce US-linked oil facilities to “a pile of ashes” as the two-week-old Middle East war spilled over into a global oil price crisis. Iranian armed forces issued the warning after US President Donald Trump said he may decide to “wipe out” Iran’s largest oil export hub on its Kharg Island. Waves of drone, missile and aerial bombing have displaced millions in the region and reportedly killed more than 1,200 people in Iran since the United States and Israel opened hostilities on February 28. Despite facing superior US and Israeli firepower, Iran has retaliated with missile and drone attacks against at least 10 countries.
Tehran has also squeezed the world economy by threatening to strike oil tankers on the Strait of Hormuz, bringing traffic to a virtual halt on a route that normally carries one fifth of global oil supplies. Crude oil prices have surged more than 40 percent since the war began. Trump said Friday that US forces had “totally obliterated” all military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub, describing it in a social media post as “one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East.” The US leader said he had chosen not to “wipe out” oil infrastructure on the Iranian island, for now.
“However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the free and safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” he said. Trump said the US Navy would start escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz “very soon” to restore oil exports. The Iranian military responded that oil and energy infrastructure owned by US-linked firms would “immediately be destroyed and turned into a pile of ashes” if the United States struck its oil facilities, according to Iranian media.
US and Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,200 people in Iran, according to health ministry figures that could not be independently verified. The UN refugee agency has estimated that up to 3.2 million people have been displaced inside Iran since the war started.
– Blasts hit Tehran –
Heavy blasts shook Tehran late Friday after the United States vowed to step up air strikes. Trump described Iran as “totally defeated” and in search of a deal he was unwilling to consider. According to the Pentagon, the US and Israel have struck more than 15,000 targets in Iran over the past two weeks. Israel’s military said it conducted 7,600 strikes on the country, most of them against its missile programme.
Iran appears intent on showing it will come through the war intact and in control, despite its supreme leader Ali Khamenei being killed at the start of the US-Israeli campaign. Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei was named the new supreme leader but has been absent from public view and said to be wounded. Within Iran, the Revolutionary Guards have warned of a strong response to any anti-government protests, following demonstrations in January in which several thousand people were killed. Iranian authorities have maintained an internet blackout since the war started.
A drone struck the US embassy in Baghdad on Saturday, an Iraqi security official and a security source said. An AFP journalist saw smoke rising from the complex. The attack took place shortly after two Iran-backed fighters were killed in strikes on Iraq’s capital, according to several sources. After 14 days of war, the United States is reportedly sending reinforcements that could open up options beyond the airborne campaign. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times said Friday that the Pentagon had dispatched the Japan-based amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli to the region along with its complement of some 2,500 Marines. The US military has lost 13 personnel since the war started. They include six who were aboard a refueling aircraft that crashed in Iraq, an incident that US officials said was not the result of hostile fire. Gulf countries are still being targeted by Iran.
– Missiles intercepted –
Qatar said it intercepted two missiles Saturday after blasts were heard in the capital Doha, and authorities said they had evacuated some key areas. Interceptors were seen downing two projectiles over the Qatari capital’s downtown area, and blasts were heard, according to AFP journalists. Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry said its forces had intercepted dozens of drones on Friday. Beyond the Gulf, Turkey said NATO forces shot down a ballistic missile launched from Iran — the third such interception in the war.
Lebanon has been drawn into the war too, after a Tehran-backed militant group attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iran’s supreme leader. An Israeli strike in southern Lebanon killed a dozen doctors, paramedics, and nurses at a healthcare clinic, Lebanese health authorities said Saturday. According to the Lebanese authorities, at least 773 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Lebanon aimed at wiping out Iranian ally Hezbollah.
– AFP teams in Tehran, Jerusalem, Washington, Dubai, and Beirut.
© 2024 AFP
