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.
TOP DEVELOPMENTS
Israel claims attack on Iran's Intelligence Minister: Israel’s Channel 12 on Wednesday reported that Israeli air strikes targeted Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib. Officials are currently assessing the outcome of the operation.
Iran confirms death of security chief Larijani: Iran's Supreme National Security Council on Tuesday confirmed the death of its chief Ali Larijani, after Israel said it had killed him in an air strike.
Israel vows to 'neutralise' Mojtaba: Israel's military on Tuesday vowed to hunt down and "neutralise" Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, after saying it had killed the Islamic republic's powerful national security chief in an airstrike.
Israel attacks Beirut: Lebanon reported that at least 12 were killed and 41 injured. A child has been critically injured in Deir ez-Zahrani, southern Lebanon.
Israel hits Iran's key gas field: Iran on Wednesday reported that the IDF struck its South Pars gas field and threatened to target energy fields in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar.
Iran executes 'Israeli spy': Iranian authorities have executed a man convicted of spying for Israel, the judiciary said on Wednesday in a first since the war against Israel and the United States broke out.
Iraq resumes oil export: Iraq has made a new deal allowing it to access Turkiye's Kurdish pipeline for oil exports.
IMO seeks 'safe corridor' for ships: The UN agency is responding to concerns over thousands of vessels and around 20,000 seafarers left stranded west of the Strait of Hormuz after Iran’s retaliation against Israeli-US strikes disrupted commercial shipping.
US President Donald Trump lashed out Tuesday at "foolish" NATO over Iran, saying the United States needs no help after allies rebuffed his calls to join efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump said most US allies had rejected his push to escort ships through the crucial waterway, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying his country would "never" do so until the situation was calmer.
"I think NATO is making a very foolish mistake," Trump told reporters as he hosted Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin in the Oval Office.
"I've long said that I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us. So this was a great test."
But Trump insisted that Washington was ready to go it alone against Iran, saying that even NATO allies had agreed that the Islamic republic needed to be confronted over its nuclear program. "We don't need too much help. We don't need any help," Trump said.
Minutes before the meeting, Trump made a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform saying US forces "no longer need" military help in the Iran war. Trump said that "most" NATO allies had said they did not want to get involved, along with Japan, Australia and South Korea, describing the decades-old military alliance as a "one way street."
"Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer 'need,' or desire, the NATO Countries' assistance -- WE NEVER DID!"
Joe Kent, the director of the United States' National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation on Tuesday, saying he "cannot in good conscience" back the Trump administration's war in Iran.
Kent is the first senior US official to resign from the Trump administration to protest the war against Iran.
Announcing his resignation via X, Kent wrote that Iran "posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby."
Reacting to his resignation US President Donald Trump called it "good thing" that Kent stepped down. "I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security," the president told reporters in the Oval Office.
He said that when he saw Kent's resignation statement "I realized that it's a good thing that he's out."
Several loud explosions were heard Tuesday evening in Iraq's capital Baghdad, AFP journalists reported, with a security official reporting a drone and rocket attack on the US embassy.
In a restaurant in the city, where diners did not react to the initial sounds of the blasts, a witness told AFP he saw explosions in the sky caused by the embassy's air defences intercepting projectiles.
Another witness saw a fire on the embassy grounds from her balcony, with the blaze also reported by the security official, who said it was caused by a drone.
The images give a glimpse into the toll, with ships ablaze in an Iranian port and destroyed buildings at an American base. Such information has been scarce, particularly from inside closed military facilities.
These images come from Planet Labs PBC, a San Francisco-based firm used by media outlets including The Associated Press. Planet Labs imposed a two-week delay to avoid having its imagery used by “adversarial actors.”
High-resolution images also have been published by competing firms, and providers including the US Geological Survey have been publishing lower-resolution imagery.
The US and Israel have been striking a wide variety of targets, including leadership figures, military bases, missile and air defense sites and positions of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and its volunteer force, the Basij. Iran has responded with drone and missile fire targeting Israel and nearby Gulf Arab nations.
The State Department has reached out to numerous countries seeking their support in isolating Iran by designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations even though Trump says the US doesn’t need military help.
A cable sent to all US diplomatic missions on Monday told American diplomats in countries that have not yet made such designations to urge them to act quickly to do so.
“Such designations will intensify the pressure on the Iranian regime and limit its ability to sponsor terror activities across the globe that jeopardize the safety and security of your populations,” the cable advised US diplomats to tell their host governments.
“We assess that the Iranian regime is more sensitive to collective action than unilateral actions and that joint pressure is more likely to compel change by the regime than unilateral actions alone,” said the cable, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.
Iranian American Ariana Afshar has tried to produce commentary about the war based on the perspectives of people in Iran.
But the New York-based social media creator keeps running into an obstacle: An internet blackout imposed by the government in Tehran has stifled almost all communications from the country.
That makes it nearly impossible to reliably survey perspectives inside Iran, where Afshar lived as a teenager and still has family.
“I think it’s a huge problem among the Iranian diaspora, where they speak for Iranians a lot. I don’t want to fall into that,” said Afshar, who has roughly 350,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok. Content creators “cannot thoroughly access the people’s opinions in Iran,” she said.
The Israeli military said Tuesday that it would hunt down Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
"We don't know about Mojtaba Khamenei, we don't hear him, we don't see him, but I can tell you one thing: we will track him down, find him, and neutralise him," military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin told reporters.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Tuesday confirmed the death of the commander of the affiliated Basij paramilitary force in an US-Israeli strike.
"Commander Gholamreza Soleimani, head of the Basij Organization, has been martyred," the Guards said on their Sepah News website, after Israel said it had killed him in an air strike.
Iran's Supreme National Security Council on Tuesday confirmed the death of its chief Ali Larijani, after Israel said it had killed him in an air strike.
"The pure souls of the martyrs embraced the purified soul of God's righteous servant, Martyr Dr. Ali Larijani," the council said, adding that his son and his bodyguards had died with him.
Israel killed two senior Iranian security officials in a major blow to the Islamic Republic’s leadership as it faces its greatest test in decades, and Iran responded Wednesday with renewed missile and drone attacks on its Gulf Arab neighbors and Israel.
Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was considered one of the most powerful figures in the country since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an airstrike on the first day of the war. General Gholam Reza Soleimani was the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s all-volunteer Basij.
Iran confirmed the killings of both men, who were key to Iran’s violent crackdown on protests in January that challenged the theocracy’s 47-year rule.
A barrage of missiles from Iran killed two people near Tel Aviv, Israeli medical officials said Wednesday, bringing the death toll from missiles fired on the country to 14.
Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry reported early Wednesday it shot down a ballistic missile targeting the area around Prince Sultan Air Base, which hosts American forces and aircraft.
US Central Command said Tuesday it had hit Iranian missile sites with "multiple 5,000-pound deep penetrator munitions," some of the most powerful bombs in the US arsenal, near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Hours ago, U.S. forces successfully employed multiple 5,000-pound deep penetrator munitions on hardened Iranian missile sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles in these sites posed a risk to international shipping in the… pic.twitter.com/hgCSFH0cqO
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 17, 2026
Iranian army chief Amir Hatami threatened on Wednesday to launch a "decisive and regrettable" retaliation for the killing of security chief Ali Larijani in an Israeli air strike.
"Iran's response to the assassination of the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council will be decisive and regrettable," Hatami said in a statement.
The Revolutionary Guards, Iran's powerful military force that is separate from the army, said in a statement Wednesday that it had launched missiles at central Israel "in revenge for the blood of martyr Dr Ali Larijani and his companions".
Qatar's defence ministry said it intercepted a missile attack on Wednesday as blasts were heard in Doha.
"Armed forces intercepted missile attack which targeted State of Qatar," the ministry of defence said in a statement.
The repercussions of the war in the Middle East would be felt globally, Iran's top diplomat said on Wednesday, suggesting more Western officials should push back against the conflict.
"Wave of global repercussions has only begun and will hit all — regardless of wealth, faith, or race," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X, accompanied by a copy of the US National Counterterrorism Center director's resignation announcement prompted by the war on Tuesday.
"A rising number of voices — (including) European and U.S. officials — exclaim that the war on Iran is unjust. More members of the international community should follow suit," the post added.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) will hold an extraordinary session today to discuss measures to protect shipping in the Persian Gulf, including the creation of a “safe maritime corridor” to allow the evacuation of seafarers and ships stranded by the conflict.
The London-based UN agency, responsible for regulating international shipping safety, is responding to growing concerns over thousands of vessels and around 20,000 seafarers left stranded west of the Strait of Hormuz after Iran’s retaliation against Israeli-US strikes disrupted commercial shipping. Despite the tensions, Iran continues to export millions of barrels of oil, though the effective blockade has driven up global oil prices and rattled markets.
Since the conflict began, at least 21 ships have been hit, targeted, or reported attacks, according to AFP data compiled from the IMO, UK Maritime Trade Operations, and Iraqi and Iranian authorities.
Iranian authorities have executed a man convicted of spying for Israel, the judiciary said on Wednesday, reported AFP. This is the first such execution announced since the war with Israel and the United States broke out.
"The death sentence of a spy for the Zionist regime, who had been providing images and information, about the country's sensitive locations to Mossad officers was carried out this morning," the judiciary's Mizan Online website said.
Mizan identified the man as Kouroush Keyvani and said he was arrested during Iran's 12-day war with Israel in June. The United States briefly joined with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
It listed details of his meetings with agents from Israel's Mossad spy agency and said he received training in "six European countries and in Tel Aviv."
On February 28, Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran, killing its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and triggering another war that has spread across the Middle East.
A new Israeli strike hit central Beirut's Zuqaq al-Blat neighbourhood on Wednesday, state media reported, the second on the densely populated area since the early morning without prior warning.
A blast was heard throughout the capital, and AFPTV's live broadcast showed plumes of smoke rising from the area as the war between Hezbollah and Israel continued.
A building in Bashoura, also in central Beirut, was struck earlier following an Israeli warning.
Benchmark US oil contract, West Texas Intermediate, was down more than four percent in Asian trading late Wednesday, as Iraq plans to restart exports via Turkey.
Around 0630 GMT, a barrel of WTI was down 4.26 percent at USD 92.11, retreating after an almost three percent jump the previous day. Brent crude, the global market benchmark, was down 2.82 percent at USD 100.50 a barrel.
Four people have been killed and eight injured in a US-Israeli attack in the Cheghani region, according to reports.
Iran will hold a funeral Wednesday for its security chief Ali Larijani as it vowed revenge, firing off a wave of missiles at Israel after it killed the powerful figure in an air strike.
Lebanon said Israel struck central Beirut early Wednesday without warning, killing at least 12 people and injuring 41 others, as the Israeli military announced it was targeting the country's south.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war on March 2 when Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel in response to US-Israeli strikes that killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Israel has responded with intense strikes in multiple Lebanese regions and ground operations in the south, and has hit central Beirut several times, with and without warning.
Iranian media said on Wednesday that Israel and the United States had launched fresh strikes in across several areas of the country.
Tasnim news agency said "seven people were killed and 56 were injured in an American-Zionist attack on residential areas in Dorud town" in Lorestan province. The cities of Tehran and Hamedan were hit as well as Fars province. The judiciary's Mizan Online website said US-Israeli strikes hit a judiciary building in Fars province.
AFP could not independently verify the figures.
Israel’s Channel 12 on Wednesday reported that Israeli air strikes targeted Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib. Officials are currently assessing the outcome of the operation.
Iran has yet to comment on this development.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah's Al Manar TV says one of its directors killed in Israel's Beirut strike
The Israeli army admitted that one of its tanks fired on a UN position in southern Lebanon on March 6, wounding three Ghanaian peacekeepers.
The army, in a statement to the Reuters news agency, acknowledged its troops were behind the incident in which shells were fired on UNIFIL personnel at the al-Qawzah base, and said it had apologised to Ghana and the United Nations.
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has dismantled 'royalist cells' and and arrested four alleged spies working for the US in a nationwide security operation, Tasnim news agency reported.
The ministry announced that 111 individuals were identified and detained across 26 provinces overnight, adding that a “significant” number of weapons had been seized from those arrested.
“Additionally, four spies of the US regime and its proxy services were identified and arrested in the provinces of Hamedan and West Azerbaijan,” it added.
“These traitorous spies were reporting to the enemy the location of headquarters, equipment, and deployment of security forces.”
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said two people including a paramedic have been killed and seven wounded in an Israeli air strike on the southern city of Sidon, the National News Agency reported according to Al Jazeera.
The strike targeted a car near the city’s waterfront.
A missile was intercepted in northern Israel and another fell in central Israel, reported Al Jazeera, citing Israeli media sources.
Iraq will be accessing Turkiye’s Ceyhan terminal to resume export of oil which had been temporarily cut after Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Al Jazeera reported.
The new deal with Turkiye allows Iraq to regulate its oil production which had dropped from about 4.2 million barrels to one million a day.
Erbil and Baghdad have agreed to use this pipeline through the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq to Turkiye’s Ceyhan port.
The move was mediated by Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Libya and special envoy for Syria, who spoke to authorities in Anbar to help facilitate the deal.
Israel’s Defence Minister Katz claimed that Iran’s Intelligence Minister was assassinated last night, Al Jazeera reported.
Katz has said to expect surprises, saying this war will continue on both fronts – the one targeting Iran and the other targeting Hezbollah.
Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib was close to the new supreme leader, Israeli military analysts said.
Israeli sources told Al Jazeera that they said they have been gathering intelligence which helped them successfully target and kill three top Iranian officials.
Iranian state media are reporting that natural gas facilities associated with the offshore South Pars field have been attacked, said Al Jazeera.
Israeli media outlets are now quoting local officials that Israeli jets have targeted Iranian gas infrastructure in Bushehr province, southern Iran, Al Jazeera reported.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested “finishing off” what is left of the “Iranian Terror State” in a post on Truth Social.
Trump urged countries relying on the Strait of Hormuz to take responsibility of the critical waterway and criticised “non-responsive” allies.
Iran's state television published a threat on Wednesday that the Islamic Republic would be attacking oil and gas infrastructure in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, following Israel's attack on South Pars gas field. IRGC issued an evacuation threat for people living near the five oil facilities.
Iran specifically threatened Saudi Arabia's Samref Refinery and its Jubail Petrochemical Complex. It also threatened the UAE's Al Hasan Gas Field and the petrochemical plants and a refinery in the Qatar.
The Israeli military told AFP on Wednesday that "debris" had hit Ben Gurion Airport following Iranian missile fire, without specifying when the incident had occurred.
Israeli media reported that private planes parked at the international airport near Tel Aviv had sustained damage. The army lifted the censorship order regarding the incident on Wednesday but did not authorise the disclosure of the date.
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian confirmed on Wednesday that Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib had been killed in the war with the US and Israel, calling it 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.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe told lawmakers at a Senate hearing Wednesday that an unencumbered Iran could have developed missiles with a range of 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) that could strike Europe.
Ratcliffe also said Iran would have developed the ability to threaten the US if it had continued to work on its booster technologies.
But the CIA director did not directly answer a question from Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas regarding whether Iran could have had a missile to threaten the US “in as few as six months.”
Ratcliffe told Cotton that he was “right to be concerned.” But the CIA director did not provide a time frame for when Iran could have threatened Europe or the US with a missile.
Days after launching the war, Trump administration officials told congressional staff in private briefings that US intelligence did not suggest Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against the US.
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard dodged when asked by senators during a hearing about whether she had warned Trump about the likelihood of Iran attacking other Gulf nations and threatening ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
“I have not and won’t divulge internal conversations,” Gabbard said in response to questions from Democratic Sen. Mark Warner. “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.”
Warner was clearly frustrated with Gabbard’s lack of a clear response and pointed repeatedly to Trump’s remarks that suggest he did not expect Iran to launch attack on other Gulf nations or close the Strait of Hormuz, which is vital for oil exports from the region.
The UN nuclear watchdog said Wednesday that Iranian authorities had reported a projectile impact at the country's only operational nuclear power plant but that it caused no damage.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "has been informed by Iran that a projectile hit the premises of the Bushehr NPP on Tuesday evening", the Vienna-based agency posted on social media.
"No damage to the plant or injuries to staff reported."
Agency head Rafael Grossi "reiterates his call for restraint during the conflict to avoid any risk of a nuclear accident", the statement said.
Lebanon's health ministry said Wednesday that Israeli attacks have killed 968 people in the country since war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah on March 2, raising a previous toll of 912 a day earlier.
The new ministry statement said the toll included 77 women, 116 children and 40 health workers, with 2,432 other people wounded.
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.
Multiple loud explosions echoed over the Saudi capital Riyadh on Wednesday, according to AFP journalists in the city.
The Gulf kingdom has been regularly targeted by Iranian missile and drone attacks, including some aimed at Saudi Arabia's massive energy installations and the capital's diplomatic quarter.
Testifying before a Senate committee, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said the US attacks on Iran have “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and buried underground facilities.
Gabbard said the US has been monitoring whether Iran’s leadership will try to restart its nuclear program but so far, they have not tried to rebuild their nuclear enrichment capability.
Vice President JD Vance made the comment in response to a question about the resignation of Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
Vance says Trump “welcomes differences of opinion” from everyone.
“That said, whatever your view is, when the president makes a decision, it’s your job to help make that decision as effective and successful as possible,” Vance said.
If you can’t do that, Vance said, “then it’s a good thing for you to resign.”
A senior British defense official says a credible plan to ensure ships can safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz is still a long way off.
Iran has effectively shut the vital oil route since the US and Israel launched attacks last month. Trump has veered between demanding other countries send ships to open the strait and saying the US does not need allies’ help.
The British government says it is talking to allies around the world about options, and has sent a team of military planners to US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East. But officials say discussions are at an early stage and focus on maintaining security after fighting has subsided.
UK Armed Forces Minister Al Carns said Wednesday the threat to shipping from Iran includes mines, fast attack boats, ballistic missiles, drones and other “asymmetric threats.”
He said it presents “a “significant military challenge” that requires “a multinational solution. We’re not anywhere near that at the moment.”
US Vice President JD Vance says there is no risk that Trump would get the US into a long-term conflict in response to a question about the consequences of the war in Iran.
Vance gave the answer to a reporter after delivering remarks in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on Wednesday.
He said, “I guarantee that the president of the United States is not interested in getting us in the kind of long-term quagmires that we’ve seen in years past.” He says he knows how Trump thinks about national security. “That is not a risk with this president at all.”
US National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard danced around questions from a Democratic senator about whether there was an imminent threat of a nuclear attack from Iran.
She told Sen. Jon Ossoff that it wasn’t the intelligence community’s job to determine what is an imminent threat against the US and put that responsibility on Trump. “The only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president,” Gabbard said.
Ossoff accused her of avoiding a direct answer “because to provide a candid response to the committee would contradict a statement from the White House.”
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.
Oil prices surged Wednesday following a strike on one of Iran's gas facilities that raised the spectre of a further escalation of attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf region.
The price of oil surged another 5% to over $108 a barrel on international markets, increasing the price of gasoline and other goods, and putting pressure on consumers and economies around the world.
The rise comes after Iran vowed to hit energy facilities throughout the Gulf in retaliation to what it said was an Israeli attack on a facility serving a massive gas field it shares with Qatar.
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah condemned on Wednesday Israel's killing of Iranian national seucrity chief Ali Larijani, calling it "cowardly."
"We in Hezbollah, as we condemn this cowardly assassination and the ongoing criminal American–Israeli aggression, affirm that the assassination of leaders will neither break the will of the Islamic Republic nor undermine the determination of its leadership, its people, and its fighters," the Iran-backed group said.
Larijani, one of the most powerful men in Iran, was killed in an Israeli air strike, Tehran confirmed Tuesday.
A hole ripped through the ceiling, a kitchen with collapsing shelves and a balcony with patio furniture covered in debris.
This was the state of an apartment in central Israel Wednesday, where a cluster munition fired by Iran had killed an older couple the night before.
“That cluster bomb separated to dozens of smaller rockets and spread out on kilometers in the center of Israel,“ said military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, speaking to journalists at the scene.
The barrage of missiles Iran launched toward Israel overnight was in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and one of the country’s most powerful figures, the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said Wednesday.
Dubai airport has reopened to foreign airlines after operations were altered following a missile strike near the airport area, with IndiGo set to resume two flights and the Air India group also operating services intermittently.
Qatar also condemned Israeli attacks on facilities linked to Iran's massive South Pars gas field -- an extension of Qatar's own North Field -- as "dangerous and irresponsible".
Earlier, United Arab Emirates condemned the targeting of Iranian facilities in a gas field shared with Qatar, calling the attack a "dangerous escalation".
Iran said the United States and Israel were responsible.
Iran's military said it would in turn "severely strike" energy infrastructure across the Gulf. Gas imports in Iraq, highly dependent on Iranian supplies, were immediately halted, authorities said, adding that it would have a knock-on affect on power supplies there.
US Federal Reserve officials expect the war in West Asia will worsen inflation this year while having little impact on growth. However, Fed policymakers still expect to cut their key rate once in 2026.
For now, they left short-term interest rates unchanged for the second straight meeting at about 3.6%. In a statement Wednesday, the central bank said that the “implications of developments in the Middle East for the US economy are uncertain.”
Still, by keeping their forecast for a rate cut this year and next — the same projections that they made in December — central bank policymakers appear to expect the gas price spike from the Iran war to have a largely temporary effect on inflation and the economy. Policymakers also foresee unemployment remaining unchanged by the end of this year, a more optimistic outlook than most outside economists.
Whether that turns out to be true will largely depend on the length of the conflict. The officials expect inflation to fall back to 2.2% in 2027 and hit the Fed’s 2% target in 2028.
Fed officials now expect that inflation will be 2.7% at the end of this year, up from their December forecast but slightly below the 2.8% it reached in January. They expect core inflation, which excludes the volatile food and energy categories, to also finish the year at 2.7%, up from a previous forecast of 2.5%. The Fed considers core prices a better measure of longer-run inflation. Consumer prices will spike higher in the coming months as gas prices have soared, but those increases could unwind by the end of the year, particularly if the conflict ends soon.
Masoud Pezeshkian’s statement on X said such attacks would not help Israel and the United States.
“This will complicate the situation and could have uncontrollable consequences, the scope of which could engulf the entire world,” he wrote.
