Iran escalated its retaliation Thursday by striking energy infrastructure across the Gulf, hitting a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea, setting LNG facilities in Qatar and oil refineries in Kuwait ablaze, after an Israeli attack on its main gas field triggered a surge in global fuel prices.
Brent crude oil, the international standard, spiked to $114 a barrel as global fears of an energy crisis rose, up more than 57% since Israel and the U.S. started the war Feb. 28 with strikes on Iran.
A ship was set ablaze off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and another was damaged off Qatar, underscoring the ever-present danger also facing vessels due to Iran's stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported.
Saudi Arabia had begun pumping large volumes of oil west to avoid the strait and ship it from the Red Sea, but the security of that route was called into question after Iran's drone hit the country’s SAMREF refinery in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu.
Qatar, a key source of natural gas for world markets, said firefighters put out a blaze at a major LNG facility after it was hit by Iranian missiles. Production had already been halted there after earlier attacks, but it said the latest wave of missiles caused "sizable fires and extensive further damage."
Damage to the facility could delay Qatar in getting its supplies to the market even after the Iran war ends.
A drone attack on Kuwait's Mina al-Ahmadi refinery sparked a fire but caused no injuries, the state-run KUNA news agency reported.
The refinery is one of the biggest in the Middle East, with a petroleum production capacity of 730,000 barrels per day. Shortly after, a drone attack set ablaze the nearby Mina Abdullah refinery, officials said.
Authorities in Abu Dhabi said they were forced to shut down operations at its Habshan gas facility and Bab field, calling Iranian overnight attacks on the sites a "dangerous escalation."
Missile alert sirens sounded in multiple other areas around the Gulf and Israel warned of incoming Iranian fire.
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE all denounced the Iranian attacks, with Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat saying assaults on the kingdom meant "what little trust there was before has completely been shattered."
But Iran showed no signs of relenting, with Saudi Arabia intercepting six drones in Riyadh and Eastern province before saying that the SAMREF refinery was hit.
The Saudi Defense Ministry said damage assessment was underway, without elaborating. SAMREF is a joint venture between the kingdom’s oil giant Saudi Aramco and ExxonMobil.
The wave of Iranian attacks came after Israel hit South Pars, the Iranian part of the world's largest gas field located offshore in the Persian Gulf and owned jointly with Qatar.
With some 80% of all power generated in Iran coming from natural gas, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency, the attack directly threatens the country's electricity supplies.
Natural gas is also used to supply household heating and cooking across the Islamic Republic.
Hitting the gas field is a "clear expansion of the conflict," the New York-based Soufan Center said in a research note.
"Israel’s target selection in this war has heavily focused on the institutions, leaders and infrastructure ..." the think tank said. "It now seeks to inflict additional pressure on the regime by making the living conditions for civilians intolerable."
Iran condemned the strike on South Pars, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warning of "uncontrollable consequences" that "could engulf the entire world."
In Washington, President Donald Trump said that Israel would not attack South Pars again, but warned on social media that if Iran continued striking Qatar’s energy infrastructure, the U.S. would retaliate and "massively blow up the entirety" of the field.
"I do not want to authorize this level of violence and destruction because of the long term implications that it will have on the future of Iran," Trump said on social media.
Qatar Energy said on X that a missile hit its massive Ras Laffan LNG facility caused the blaze early Thursday.
A ship was also hit off the country's coast, according to the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center.
It was not clear whether it was deliberately targeted or was struck by falling debris as Qatar fired off missile interceptors at incoming Iranian barrages.
Saudi Arabia also reported downing Iranian drones targeting its natural gas facilities overnight and authorities in Abu Dhabi shut down the Habshan gas facility and Bab field after interceptions over the sites.
Another ship was set ablaze early Thursday off the UAE coast. It was also unclear whether it was targeted or hit with debris, the UKMTO said.
It said the vessel was just off the coast of Khor Fakkan, near the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil is normally shipped.
More than 20 vessels have been attacked during the Iran war so far, as Tehran has kept a tight grip on shipping traffic through the waterway, which leads from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean.
Iran insists the waterway is open, just not to the U.S. or its allies and while some vessels have sailed through, it has only been a trickle.
Iran announced the execution of three men detained in January’s nationwide protests, the first such sentences known to have been carried out, the judiciary's Mizan news agency reported.
The men were accused of stabbing two police officers to death in Qom, some 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of the capital, Tehran, during the protests.
Iran put down the demonstrations with intense violence that reportedly killed thousands of people and saw tens of thousands of others detained and activists have warned that authorities might carry out mass executions of those detained.
Iran has long been accused by rights campaigners of extracting coerced confessions from detainees and not allowing them to fully defend themselves in court.
More than 1,300 people in Iran have been killed during the war. Israeli strikes have displaced more than 1 million Lebanese – roughly 20% of the population – according to the Lebanese government, which says 968 people have been killed.
In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missile fire, including a Thai agricultural worker who died overnight after getting hit with shrapnel.
Three people were also killed in the occupied West Bank overnight by an Iranian missile strike, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
At least 13 U.S. military members have been killed.
