Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the offices of Al-Qard al-Hassan, a Hezbollah-linked financial institution, in the city of Baalbeck in Lebanon's Bekaa valley. Photo / Nidal Solh, AFP
Qatar downed two Iranian bombers and halted LNG production today, as Tehran widened its attacks to hit oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in a sharply escalating Gulf crisis that has sent prices soaring.
Qatar’s Air Force shot down two Sukhoi Su-24 bombers, the Defence Ministry said - the first time a Gulf country has hit Iranian planes, after Tehran began region-wide attacks in retaliation for United States and Israeli strikes that have devastated its leadership.
Iran’s retaliatory attacks have hit ports, airports, residential buildings and hotels along with military sites across the wealthy region of oil giants and staunch US allies.
Six people have been killed and dozens injured since the attacks began.
As the attacks widened to energy facilities, QatarEnergy, one of the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters, suspended production due to drone strikes on two of its sites.
European natural gas prices leapt more than 50%, while oil surged nearly 9% on fears of disruption to supplies.
“Qatar Emiri Air Force successfully shot down two [Su-24] aircraft coming from the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the Defence Ministry said, without mentioning the jets’ crews.
The Gulf militaries have so far focused on intercepting the hundreds of missiles and drones launched by Iran after US-Israeli strikes killed its Supreme Leader.
A general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened to “burn any ship” seeking to navigate the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for oil and gas shipments.
“We will also attack oil pipelines and will not allow a single drop of oil to leave the region. Oil price will reach US$200 in the coming days,” General Sardar Jabbari said in a post on the Guards’ Telegram channel.
Four powerful explosions were heard and felt by AFP journalists after midnight in Tehran, as local media reported blasts across the city.
The four explosions shook the windows of apartments. The targets were unclear.
With fighter jets flying over the capital, AFP journalists earlier saw huge columns of smoke rising from Tehran’s historic centre and the east of the city. The Mehr and Tasnim agencies reported explosions in these areas.
Iran’s Unesco-listed Golestan Palace in Tehran has been damaged in US and Israeli strikes, local media reported.
“Following the joint US-Israeli attack on Arag square in southern Tehran on Sunday evening, parts of the Golestan Palace ... were damaged,” the ISNA news agency reported, adding that windows, doors, and mirrors were hit by reverberations from blasts.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for restraint as clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon intensified amid the Israeli and US war on the armed group’s main backer Iran.
“We’re seriously concerned about the exchange of fire across the Blue Line. The situation on the ground is evolving rapidly, and we’re monitoring developments closely,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
A source close to the Saudi Government warned that a “concerted” Iranian attack on oil facilities could trigger a military response.
The warning followed a drone strike at Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura refinery - one of the region’s biggest - which forced it to halt some operations.
“It depends if this is seen as a direct attack on Aramco by the Iranian leadership or a rogue drone,” the source told AFP, referring to the state oil giant.
Saudi Arabia would target “Iranian oil facilities if Iran mounts a concerted attack on Aramco”, the source added.
Another source told AFP that the Saudi Army had raised its readiness level to “full alert”.
In Abu Dhabi, a drone struck a fuel tank terminal, causing a fire though operations were not impacted.
“Abu Dhabi authorities have responded today to a fire resulting from the targeting of a Musaffah fuel tank terminal by a drone. The situation was promptly contained. No injuries were reported and there was no impact on operations,” the Abu Dhabi Media Office said in a statement.
Iran’s unprecedented bombardment has rattled a region long seen as an oasis of stability in the turbulent Middle East.
Blasts echoed across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Manama. Security analyst Anna Jacobs called the war a “nightmare scenario” for the Gulf.
“These sorts of attacks just completely obliterate the image of these countries as a safe haven,” she told AFP.
Earlier, smoke poured out of Kuwait City’s US embassy, an AFP correspondent saw.
Later, one Kuwait-based diplomat and a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP the embassy had been damaged by a number of drones and a second Kuwait-based diplomat said the embassy building had been struck directly in the attack.
Three F-15E Strike Eagles were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defences in a friendly-fire incident late yesterday, the US Central Command said.
The crews parachuted to safety.
Separately, Kuwait’s military said two non-commissioned naval officers were killed today while on duty, without elaborating on the circumstances of their deaths.
Shrapnel fell at Mina Al Ahmadi refinery, one of Kuwait’s biggest, injuring two workers, but did not disrupt production, the Kuwait National Petroleum Company said.
In northern Kuwait, smoke billowed over a power station, three witnesses told AFP. An energy ministry spokeswoman said a fuel container was hit by shrapnel after a drone interception.
Kuwait was hard-hit with 19 people injured, the Health Ministry said. The small, oil-rich country has a large US military presence.
Bahrain suffered its first death when debris from an intercepted missile sparked a fire on a ship in the port city of Salman, killing one Asian worker and seriously injuring two others, the Interior Ministry said.
Italy said it was helping evacuate hundreds of citizens from the majority-expat United Arab Emirates, which halted flights at the weekend.
However, limited flights resumed from Dubai, the world’s busiest airport for international passengers, and Abu Dhabi today. Thousands of tourists remain stranded in the country.
In the US, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today that the country attacked Iran only after learning that ally Israel was going to strike and fearing Tehran would retaliate against US forces.
“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio told reporters.
Rubio, who was preparing to brief key US lawmakers, said that Iran had told field commanders to respond automatically against US forces if there was an attack.
“If we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties. And so the President made the very wise decision” to hit alongside Israel, Rubio said.
Asked if the US faced an imminent threat from Iran - a key threshold in the US as Congress constitutionally has the power to declare war - Rubio again pointed to the Israeli plans.
“There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked - and we believed they would be attacked - that they would immediately come after us,” Rubio said.
“We were not going to sit there and absorb a blow,” Rubio said, adding that if Iran hit US forces first, “we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act”.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier said that it was Israel that carried out the strike Saturday in Tehran that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other key officials, after intelligence emerged that they were meeting.
Rubio, however, said that US President Donald Trump’s Administration believed in the need to strike Iran, regardless of how the timing was triggered.
“No matter what, ultimately this operation needed to happen,” Rubio said.
Rubio said that the US would like to see the overthrow of the Iran’s clerical state but that that was not the goal.
“We hope that the Iranian people can overthrow this Government and establish a new future for that country. We would love for that to be possible,” Rubio said.
“But the objective of this mission is the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities and of their naval capabilities.”
The US hit more than 1250 targets in the first 48 hours of the war against Iran, the US military said.
Targets struck included command-and-control centres, ballistic missile sites, Iranian Navy ships and submarines, and anti-ship missile sites, according to a fact sheet released by the US Central Command, which is responsible for American forces in the region.
- Agence France-Presse