3 US F-15E Strike Eagles shot down in Kuwait
DUBAI, Mar 2: The war in the Middle East spiralled further Monday as Israel and the US pounded Iran in a campaign that US President Donald Trump said would likely take several weeks.
Tehran and its allies hit back against Israel, neighbouring Gulf states and targets critical to the world’s energy production.
The intensity of the attacks, the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the lack of any apparent exit plan set the stage for a prolonged conflict with far-reaching consequences.
Safe havens in the Mideast like Dubai have seen incoming fire; hundreds of thousands of airline passengers are stranded around the globe; oil prices shot up; and US allies pledged to help stop Iranian missiles and drones.
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With no sign of the conflict abating anytime soon, Trump said Monday that the operations are likely to last four to five weeks but that he was prepared “to go far longer than that”.
He said US forces were determined to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, wipe out its naval capacity, stop the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensure that Iran cannot continue to arm and fund allied groups like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which fired missiles at Israel, drawing retaliatory airstrikes.
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“This was our last, best chance to strike — what we’re doing right now — and eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime,” Trump said.
Iran has long threatened, if attacked, to drag the region into total war, including targeting Israel, the Gulf Arab states and the flow of crude oil crucial for global energy markets. All of these came under attack on Monday.
The chaos of the conflict became apparent when the US military said Kuwait had “mistakenly shot down” three American F-15E Strike Eagles while Iran was attacking with aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones.
US Central Command said all six pilots ejected safely and are in stable condition.
The Gulf state of Qatar meanwhile said its air force had shot down two Iranian Sukhoi Su-24 bombers.
Israel and the US bombed Iranian missile sites and targeted its navy, claiming to have destroyed its headquarters and multiple warships. As several airstrikes hit Iran’s capital of Tehran, the top security official Ali Larijani vowed on X: “We will not negotiate with the United States.”
The death toll grew on all sides. The Iranian Red Crescent Society said that the US-Israeli operation has killed at least 555 people.
In Israel, where several locations were hit by Iranian missiles, 11 people were killed. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group also targeted Israel, which responded with strikes on Lebanon, killing more than two dozen people.
Meanwhile, four American troops have been killed, and three people were reported killed in the United Arab Emirates and one each in Kuwait and Bahrain.
With world markets already rattled by the fighting, QatarEnergy said it would stop its production of liquefied natural gas, taking one of the world’s top suppliers off the market. It offered no timeline for restoring its production. European natural gas prices surged by 40% in response.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery came under attack from drones, with defences downing the incoming aircraft, a military spokesman told the state-run Saudi Press Agency. The refinery has a capacity of over half a million barrels of crude oil a day.
Several ships have been attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil trade passes and where Iran has threatened attacks.
“The attack on Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery marks a significant escalation, with Gulf energy infrastructure now squarely in Iran’s sights,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt, an analyst at the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft. “An extended period of uncertainty lies ahead.”
The region is also a hub for air travel, and passengers have been stranded around the world as carriers based in the Gulf grounded flights. Long-haul carriers Etihad and Emirates restarted limited flights Monday.
Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters that airstrikes targeted the Natanz nuclear enrichment site on Sunday.
“Their justification that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons is simply a big lie,” he said.
Israel and the US have not acknowledged strikes at the site, which the US bombed in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June. Israel has said that it is targeting the “leadership and nuclear infrastructure”.
Iran has said it has not enriched uranium since June, though it has maintained its right to do so while saying its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.
Iran’s government news outlet said Monday that Tehran’s Golestan Palace, a UNESCO-listed heritage site, was damaged in US-Israeli strikes on Sunday.
Hezbollah said it fired missiles on Israel early Monday in response to Khamenei’s killing and “repeated Israeli aggressions”. It was the first time in more than a year that the militant group has claimed an attack.
There were no reports of injuries or damage.
Israel retaliated with strikes on Lebanon, killing at least 31 people and wounding 149 others, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Associated Press journalists in Beirut were jolted awake by loud explosions that shook buildings and shattered windows.
Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, the Israeli army chief of staff, said the military would not end its offensive against Hezbollah “before the threat from Lebanon is eliminated”.
“We will end this campaign with not just Iran being struck but with Hezbollah suffering a devastating blow,” he said.
Rescue services in Israel said several locations have been hit by Iranian missiles, including Jerusalem and a synagogue in Beit Shemesh. In all, 11 people have been killed.
In Iraq, the Iran-allied militia Saraya Awliya al-Dam claimed a drone attack Monday targeting US troops at the airport in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. It claimed another drone attack on Sunday against a US air base in Iraq’s north. (AP)
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