Iran hits Gulf energy hubs, Israel and U.S. strike Tehran as war shows no signs of slowing

islamic republic of iran fired on targets crosswise the midriff e, sparking multiple blazes at a Kuwaiti oil color refinery, while American and Israeli airstrikes hit the Islamic Republic on Friday as the war neared the end of its fifth week unabated.

The UN Security Council prepared to meet over Tehran's stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz.

Despite claims from the U.S. And Israel that Iran's military capabilities have been all but destroyed, Tehran has continued to keep the pressure on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbours, hitting Kuwait's Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery early Friday in a drone attack.

The refinery has been hit multiple times during the war and state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. Said firefighters were working to control several blazes. Kuwait also said that an Iranian attack damaged a desalination plant. Such plants provide the majority of the water for the Gulf Arab states and much of it for Iran.

Sirens also sounded in Bahrain warning of Iranian attacks, Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed several Iranian drones, defences were activated in the United Arab Emirates and Israel reported incoming missiles.

Activists reported strikes around Tehran and the central city of Isfahan, but it wasn't immediately clear what was hit.

Iran's attacks on Gulf region energy infrastructure and its tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas transits in peacetime, have sent oil prices skyrocketing and are impacting global economies.

Spot prices of Brent crude, the international standard, were around $109 US early Friday, up more than 50 per cent from Feb. 28, when Israel and the U.S. Started the war with their attacks on Iran.

Shipping had flowed freely through the strait before the war, but U.S. President Donald Trump is now suggesting it's not Washington's responsibility to get the waterway reopened, instead putting the onus on others, saying this week that the countries that depend more on fuel shipped through Hormuz should "build some delayed courage" and go "take it."

The UN Security Council was expected to vote Saturday on a proposal from Bahrain that would authorize defensive action to ensure vessels can safely transit the strait. Bahrain's initial draft would have allowed countries to "use all necessary means" to secure the strait, but Russia, China and France — who have veto power on the council — expressed opposition to approving the use of force.

Following meetings in Seoul between South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and French President Emmanuel Macron, the two leaders said they resolved to "co-operate to ensure safe passage" through the strait but did not offer specifics. The day before, Macron had said the American expectation that the waterway could be reopened by force was unrealistic.

Macron said a military operation "would take an infinite amount of time and would expose anyone passing through the strait to coastal threats from [Iran's] Revolutionary Guard." He added that reopening of the strait "can only be done in co-ordination with Iran," through negotiations that would follow a potential ceasefire.

Thousands of U.S. Marines and paratroopers have been ordered to the region and Trump could try a ground operation to take Iran's Kharg Island, its main oil terminal, or territory along the strait, but both carry significant risks, former CIA Director Bill Burns said on a Foreign Affairs magazine podcast.

"Then there's the third option, which is effectively declaring victory and the inversion of the old Colin Powell Pottery Barn rule, which was 'We break it, we own it,'" Burns said, referencing a comment attributed to former U.S. Secretary of state Colin Powell before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"Instead, it would be, 'We break it, you own it, and it's over to you guys,' whether it's European allies, or Gulf Arabs, or anybody else to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz."

Is Kharg Island a death trap for U.S. Forces? | About That

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 U.S. Service members have been killed.

More than 1,300 people have been killed and more than one million displaced in Lebanon, where Israel has launched a ground invasion in its fight with the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militant group. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.

---

---