A fireball rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs. Photo / Fadel Itani, AFP
Saudi Arabia said today that it had intercepted seven ballistic missiles in separate attacks targeting an air base and its eastern region, as Iran renewed fire on its Gulf neighbours.
“Six ballistic missiles launched towards Prince Sultan Air Base intercepted and destroyed,” the Saudi Defence Ministry posted on X, adding in a separate post that it had intercepted another ballistic missile launched “towards the eastern region”.
Prince Sultan air base is located in Al Kharj province and is where a United States soldier suffered injuries in a March 1 strike before dying a week later.
The kingdom’s forces also intercepted a wave of nine drones, including five destroyed east of Al Kharj province, the ministry said in separate tweets.
The United Arab Emirates also reported a new missile and drone attack from Iran today.
The Gulf state’s Defence Ministry said its air defences were responding to an unspecified number of missiles and drones, without providing further details about the target or location of the attack.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they launched a new salvo of missiles at Israeli cities including Tel Aviv and US targets in the region.
The elite force later said it targeted US bases in Bahrain and Iraqi Kurdistan, according to Iranian media reports.
In a statement carried by the Tasnim news agency, the Guards said “a mass” of ballistic missiles had been fired at the base of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and at three other facilities in the Kurdish region of Iraq.
Bahrain has been targeted by waves of Iranian drones and missiles, which have so far killed two people in the country, according to authorities.
The US said it was striking Iranian ships capable of mining the crucial Strait of Hormuz and threatened escalation if Tehran presses ahead, as the Middle East war wreaks havoc on global oil markets.
Israel launched new waves of strikes both in Beirut and Tehran, which was hunkered down for intense attacks after being smothered by black rain from Israeli-bombed fuel depots.
The US military posted video footage of Iranian boats blasted by missiles and other projectiles as it said it had destroyed 16 minelayers near the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint to the Gulf through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.
“If for any reason mines were placed, and they are not removed forthwith, the Military consequences to Iran will be at a level never seen before,” US President Donald Trump wrote on social media.
Trump faces mounting political risks over the surging cost of oil, months before US elections.
Crude prices spiked 5%, although they were down from highs yesterday of above US$100 a barrel.
Trump has offered for the US military to accompany tankers through the strait, but his Administration acknowledged that a post by the Energy Secretary announcing a first such escort was untrue.
With an eye on jittery markets, Trump said yesterday that the war would be short, although his Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, then said Tehran would be hit by unprecedented fire today.
Iran’s Government, run by Shia Muslim clerics, has voiced defiance.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former top commander in the elite Revolutionary Guards, said in an English-language post on X: “Certainly we aren’t seeking a ceasefire. We believe the aggressor must be punished and taught a lesson that will deter them from attacking Iran again.”
Israel launched the war on February 28 with an attack that killed Iran’s veteran leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The ruling clerics have named his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the new Supreme Leader.
The attacks came weeks after Iranian authorities ruthlessly crushed mass protests, although the US and Israel say they are not necessarily seeking to topple the Islamic republic.
In Tehran, one woman in her 40s said she found some reassurance in her impression that the bombings “don’t target ordinary buildings”.
But she said, “The noise of the bombings that is extremely disturbing”.
Iran’s salvos are despite US claims of decimating Iran’s missile capacity.
About 140 US military personnel have been wounded since the start of the war, most with minor injuries, the Pentagon said. Seven deaths have already been announced.
Iran has sought to extract a heavy price on the global economy, attacking the showcase cities of the Gulf including their gleaming airports and energy production.
The UAE’s biggest oil refinery at Ruwais was closed as a precaution after a drone attack on the industrial complex that houses it caused a fire, a source familiar with the situation told AFP.
Qatar, where a suspension of LNG exports has sent European energy prices sky-high, reported new attacks on its civilian infrastructure, with AFP journalists reporting explosions in Doha.
“There would be catastrophic consequences for the world’s oil markets the longer the disruption goes on, and the more drastic the consequences for the global economy,” Saudi oil giant Aramco’s president and chief executive Amin Nasser told journalists.
“It’s absolutely critical that shipping resumes in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iraq and Lebanon, both home to Shia fighters tied to Iran, have become proxy grounds of the war, with devastating consequences.
In Iraq, Iranian-linked groups said five of their fighters died in what they suspected to be strikes by the US.
Demonstrators had sought to storm the US embassy in Baghdad and at least five drones landed at a military base at the Baghdad International Airport, home to a US diplomatic facility.
In Lebanon, authorities said that Israeli attacks have killed at least 486 people and injured more than 1300 others between March 2 and yesterday.
Iran complained to the United Nations to say that four of its diplomats died in a strike on a seafront hotel in central Beirut, Lebanon.
Israel earlier said it had targeted the hotel and said it aimed at “key commanders” from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
The effects of the war could be felt far farther away, with the UN trade and development agency warning the Hormuz closure could increase the cost of essentials such as fuel and food for the world’s most vulnerable people.
In Egypt, which increased the cost of fuels by up to 30%, mother-of-six Om Mohamed fretted about the future.
“We were barely getting by as it is. I don’t know how people will manage,” she told AFP at a Cairo market.
-Agence France-Presse