The war in West Asia unravels for a third week as the United States and Israel traded fire with Iran, with attacks continuing on military, diplomatic and strategic infrastructure.
The conflict, triggered by the February 28 US-Israeli strikes on Iran, has spread across the region, roiling energy markets and pushing up oil prices as the Islamic Republic imposed a blockade on the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, Israel has intensified attacks on Lebanon, launching a ground invasion targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah.
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Mojtaba vows revenge over Larijani killing: Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said those behind the killing of security chief Ali Larijani in an Israeli strike “will have to pay for it.”
‘Uncontrollable consequences’: Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian warned on Wednesday of “uncontrollable consequences” after US-Israeli strikes targeted facilities in Iran’s South Pars gas field.
UAE, Qatar condemn strikes on gas field: In a rare rebuke, the United Arab Emirates called US-Israeli strikes on Iran’s South Pars gas field a “dangerous escalation”, while Qatar termed it a “direct threat to its national security.”
Trump deemed Iran ‘imminent threat’: US spy chief Tulsi Gabbard told a Senate hearing it was not the intelligence community’s role to determine an “imminent threat” to the US, placing that responsibility on President Donald Trump.
Iran confirms intel minister’s killing: Iran confirmed Wednesday that its intelligence minister Esmail Khatib was killed, with Pezeshkian calling it a “cowardly assassination.”
Iran nuclear plant hit: The UN nuclear watchdog said Iran reported a strike on its only operational nuclear power plant, but added there was no damage.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday it would not stop its "series of eliminations" of senior Iranian officials, after the country announced it had killed Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib.
Khatib's killing came soon after Israel killed Iran's powerful security chief Ali Larijani, and another powerful figure, Gholamreza Soleimani, head of the Basij paramilitary force.
"Over the past 24 hours, we have continued to track down and eliminate senior officials of the regime, murderers responsible for numerous terrorist operations," military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said in a televised briefing. "We will continue to hunt down all of the regime's senior officials. The series of eliminations will not stop."
Ras Laffan Industrial City is the largest liquefied natural gas export facility in the world, according to the website of QatarEnergy, the state-owned oil and gas company.
On X, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attack and said it marked a dangerous escalation. The ministry wrote that Qatar would not hesitate to respond to attacks on its security and sovereignty.
Saudi Arabia intercepted four ballistic missiles on Wednesday, with a fragment falling near a refinery south of Riyadh, its defence ministry said, as Iran threatened Gulf gas facilities following US-Israeli attacks on its own infrastructure.
"Four ballistic missiles launched toward the city of Riyadh were intercepted and destroyed, a fragment of one of the ballistic missiles landed near a refinery south of Riyadh," the ministry said in a statement on X.
Egypt's foreign ministry said it stood in solidarity with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and condemned attacks on their oil and gas facilities. It also condemned a reported US-Israeli attack on Iran’s natural gas field as “a dangerous escalation” and “a flagrant violation of international law.”
The United States was informed about Israel’s plans to strike Iran’s massive South Pars natural gas field, but did not take part in it, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The person, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, would not say if the US administration agreed with the Israeli decision to attack the gas field — part of the world’s largest such resource and a pillar of Iran’s energy supplies.
Democratic senators pressed the US government's top intelligence official at annual worldwide threats hearings on Wednesday about the war with Iran, including whether she had advised President Donald Trump that Tehran was likely to block the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial passageway for oil and gas from the Persian Gulf, if attacked.
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, repeatedly deflected questions about the intelligence she had offered the Republican president. That exasperated Democrats who tried to use a rare public forum to extract answers about the widening conflict in the Middle East.
She sidestepped when asked by Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, whether she had advised Trump that Iran would attack Gulf nations and shut down the strait if the country was targeted by US strikes.
"I have not and won't divulge internal conversations. I will say that those of us within the intelligence community continue to provide the president with all of the best objective intelligence available to inform his decisions," she said.
Iran's president warned on Wednesday of the risk of "uncontrollable consequences" of attacks on energy infrastructure, after facilities in the giant Iranian South Pars gas field were targeted in the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic.
"This will complicate the situation and could have uncontrollable consequences, the scope of which could engulf the entire world," Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X, adding that such attacks "will yield nothing" for Iran's foes the US and Israel.
Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf added in a separate post on X that after the attacks on energy facilities "an eye-for-an-eye sum is in effect, and a new level of confrontation has begun."
Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said Wednesday in a written message that the killers of security chief Ali Larijani, who died in an Israeli strike, "will have to pay for it."
"Without a doubt, the assassination of such a figure attests to his importance and to the hatred that the enemies of Islam harbour toward him," Mojtaba Khamenei said, in a message published on his official Telegram channel on the day of Larijani's funeral in Tehran.
"Every drop of spilled blood comes at a price, and the criminal murderers of these martyrs will soon have to pay it," added Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to appear in public after taking office following the killing of his father, ex-supreme leader Ali Khamenei at the start of the war.
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian confirmed on Wednesday that Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib had been killed in the war with the US and Israel, blasting a "cowardly assassination."
In a post on X, Pezeshkian did not say who had carried out the attack but earlier Israel's defence minister announced that Khatib had been "eliminated."
"The cowardly assassination of my dear colleagues Esmail Khatib, Ali Larijani and Aziz Nasirzadeh, along with some of their family members and accompanying team, has left us in mourning," he said, referring to Iran's recently killed security chief and defence minister.
The UAE condemned the targeting on Wednesday of Iranian facilities in a gas field shared with Qatar, calling the attack attributed by Iran to the US and Israel a "dangerous escalation" in a rare rebuke.
"The United Arab Emirates affirmed that targeting energy facilities linked to the South Pars gas field in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is an extension of the North Field in the sisterly State of Qatar, constitutes a dangerous escalation," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
"Targeting energy infrastructure poses a direct threat to global energy security... It also entails serious environmental repercussions and exposes civilians, maritime security, and vital civilian and industrial facilities to direct risks," it added.
Qatar said on Wednesday that Iranian attacks on its main gas facility situated on its north coast were a "direct threat to its national security".
"Qatar expresses its strong condemnation and denunciation of the brutal Iranian attack targeting Ras Laffan Industrial City... Qatar considers this assault a dangerous escalation, a flagrant violation of its sovereignty, and a direct threat to its national security," the Gulf state's foreign ministry said in a statement.