Ongoing Iranian attacks on oil and gas facilities around the Persian Gulf on Thursday escalated the war\u2019s effects on global energy supplies, as President Trump rebuked Israel for striking a key Iranian gas field, and other nations voiced growing fears that the conflict would spin out of control.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia said it might respond with force if Iran continues to attack facilities in the kingdom, and the price of oil once more skyrocketed. <\/p>\n
Trump said Israel acted \u201cout of anger\u201d and without the knowledge of the U.S., when it attacked the \u201cextremely important and valuable\u201d South Pars Field, the world\u2019s largest natural gas field. Writing on social media, Trump said there would be \u201cNO MORE ATTACKS\u201d unless Iran continues to strike liquefied natural gas fields in Qatar.<\/p>\n
If Iranian attacks continue, however, the U.S. would \u201cmassively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before,\u201d Trump wrote. <\/p>\n
The president\u2019s remarks came as Iran\u2019s intensifying attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure further rattled and angered America\u2019s allies in the region and sent shock waves through the global economy. The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose to as high as $118 a barrel \u2014 or up more than 60% since the start of the conflict. <\/p>\n
The strikes further threatened a global energy supply already eroded by Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world\u2019s oil is normally transported. <\/p>\n
Despite repeated assurances from Trump and other U.S. leaders that the U.S. is rapidly wiping out Iran\u2019s mine-laying, missile and drone capabilities in the region, Iranian attacks have continued on the vital waterway \u2014 with one vessel set ablaze Thursday off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and a second damaged off Qatar. <\/p>\n
On the other side of the Arabian Peninsula, a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea designed to bypass the strait was hit by an Iranian drone.<\/p>\n
The strikes also added to uncertainty around the Trump administration\u2019s grasp on the conflict\u2019s trajectory, scope and timeline.<\/p>\n
In recent days, Trump has made contradictory comments on the strait. He asked allies to help safeguard the strait but then said the U.S. didn\u2019t the help \u2014 after allies rebuffed his pleas. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, he reiterated that message during an event with Japanese leaders at the White House, saying it would be \u201cappropriate\u201d for European countries, Japan and other U.S. allies to help defend the strait, but unnecessary. \u201cWe don\u2019t need anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, in earlier remarks Thursday, doubled down on the administration\u2019s repeated claims that the war is going perfectly according to plan, and that the U.S. is at no risk of entering into another \u201cendless war\u201d or Middle East quagmire.<\/p>\n
Hegseth said U.S. officials \u201cwouldn\u2019t want to set a definitive time frame\u201d on wrapping up the war, adding that the American people should disregard all the \u201cnoise\u201d about the conflict \u201cwidening.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, he spoke as that noise was growing into a chorus in the face of the latest Iranian strikes.<\/p>\n
French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking ahead of a European Union summit, condemned what he called a \u201creckless\u201d escalation of the conflict and urged negotiations.<\/p>\n
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit called the Iranian attacks on Gulf infrastructure a \u201cdangerous escalation.\u201d Authorities in Abu Dhabi in the UAE used the same phrase to describe Iran\u2019s overnight attacks on some of their energy facilities. <\/p>\n
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said Thursday that trust between his government and Tehran \u201chas been completely shattered,\u201d adding that Riyadh \u201creserves the right to take military action if necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kingdom and its partners possess significant capabilities, and the patience we have shown is not unlimited,\u201d he said after a meeting of foreign ministers in Riyadh. He did not specify when that patience would run out.<\/p>\n
The kingdom\u2019s air defenses have intercepted at least 457 drones, 40 ballistic missiles and seven cruise missiles since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. In that same time, the UAE downed 1,714 drones, 334 missiles and 15 cruise missiles, according to Emirati officials.<\/p>\n
In Qatar, the state-owned QatarEnergy said a blaze at the Ras Laffan LNG facility \u2014 the largest LNG export facility in the world and where production had already been halted \u2014 ignited after a strike by Iranian missiles, and had caused \u201cextensive\u201d damage.<\/p>\n
In Kuwait, the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery \u2014 one of the biggest in the Middle East \u2014 and the nearby Mina Abdullah refinery both caught fire after drone attacks, officials there said. <\/p>\n
In Israel, millions of people rushed to shelters as more than a half-dozen waves of Iranian attacks targeted large parts of the country.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Hegseth said that the U.S. was gearing up to deliver its \u201clargest strike package yet\u201d on Iran on Thursday. He said the military would be asking for billions more from Congress to continue waging the war because \u201cit takes money to kill bad guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Reuters news agency on Wednesday reported that the Trump administration is considering deploying thousands of U.S. troops to Iran, citing four anonymous sources.<\/p>\n
In response, a White House official told The Times that there has been no decision to send ground troops to Iran, but that Trump is keeping all of his options open to achieve his goals in Iran, including destroying its ballistic missile capabilities and guaranteeing that it cannot develop a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
The U.S. took steps Thursday to stabilize the oil market.<\/p>\n
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. may soon remove sanctions from approximately 140 million barrels of Iranian oil currently \u201con the water\u201d in tankers, which he said should inject supply into the market and curb price spikes. \u201cDepending on how you count it, that\u2019s 10 days to two weeks of supply,\u201d Bessent said.<\/p>\n
The administration is also weighing another unilateral release from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to further depress prices, as U.S. reserves fall to their lowest levels since the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Were sanctions to be removed, it would serve as a massive financial lifeline to the Iranian government, enabling Tehran to reap billions in revenue that it could use to fund its ongoing fight against the U.S. and Israel.<\/p>\n
Iran, in turn, threatened additional retaliation if their energy infrastructure is further attacked \u2014 with a spokesperson from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps saying the response to future attacks would be \u201cfar more severe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe warn the enemy that you made a major mistake by attacking the energy infrastructure of \u2026 Iran,\u201d said the spokesperson in a statement carried by the Iranian ISNA news agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it is repeated again, the next attacks on your energy infrastructure and that of your allies will not stop until their complete destruction,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
The New York-based Soufan Center, in a research note, said that Israel\u2019s strike on South Pars \u2014 which directly threatened Iran\u2019s electricity supplies \u2014 marked a \u201cclear expansion of the conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael\u2019s target selection in this war has heavily focused on the institutions, leaders and infrastructure,\u201d the think tank said. \u201cIt now seeks to inflict additional pressure on the regime by making the living conditions for civilians intolerable.\u201d <\/p>\n
Amid the tensions, Gulf leaders have also expressed growing dissatisfaction with Washington.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Oman\u2019s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, a central figure in the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, described the war as a \u201ccatastrophe,\u201d and said the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cgreatest miscalculation\u201d was \u201callowing itself to be drawn into this war in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albusaidi added Iran\u2019s retaliation against Gulf states \u201cwas an inevitable, if deeply regrettable and completely unacceptable, result,\u201d that \u201cwas probably the only rational option available\u201d to an Iranian leadership facing an existential war.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica\u2019s friends have a responsibility to tell the truth,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is an uncomfortable truth to tell, because it involves indicating the extent to which America has lost control of its own foreign policy. But it must be told.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rector reported from Colorado and Bulos from Beirut. Times staff writer Gavin J. Quinton contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ongoing Iranian attacks on oil and gas facilities around the Persian Gulf on Thursday escalated the war\u2019s effects…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[84,12715,12389,34,5904,37,1517,12714,1419,213,396,39,271,50,36,1142],"class_list":{"0":"post-27022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-persian-gulf","8":"tag-attack","9":"tag-damage-assessment","10":"tag-gas-facility","11":"tag-iran","12":"tag-iranian-attack","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-israeli-strike","15":"tag-key-gas-field","16":"tag-natural-gas","17":"tag-oil","18":"tag-people","19":"tag-persian-gulf","20":"tag-qatar","21":"tag-saudi-arabia","22":"tag-war","23":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116257161446485769","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}