War spirals with fresh strikes

AFP | Tehran

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Israel yesterday launched a fresh wave of strikes on Iran, which stepped up its attacks on Gulf nations, as the Middle East war spread throughout the region and beyond.

A conflict sparked Saturday with US-Israeli attacks on Iran that killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has rapidly escalated, engulfing the region and drawing in global powers, while snarling shipping and energy markets.

The war has touched as far afield as the Sri Lankan coast, where a US submarine torpedoed an Iranian warship, and Azerbaijan, which threatened retaliation after a drone hit an airport.

Azerbaijan warned the attack “will not go unanswered” and vowed “necessary retaliatory measures,” raising fears of another country entering the fray.

On another front, Tehran said it had hit Iraq-based Kurdish groups, as the United States reportedly seeks to arm Iranian Kurdish groups to infiltrate Iran.

Australia deployed two military aircraft to the theatre while Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney said he could not rule out his armed forces taking part in hostilities.

The war has also dragged in NATO member Turkey after alliance air defences destroyed a missile launched from Iran heading towards Turkish airspace.

While a Turkish official said the missile appeared to have been aimed at a British base in Cyprus, Turkey summoned the Iranian ambassador over the incident.

‘I’m not afraid’

Following yesterday’s strikes on Tehran, AFPTV images showed blackened vehicles and mangled buildings, with smoke still rising from some.

A 30-year-old Tehran resident told AFP: “We’re going through a very important page of our history and I’m not afraid.”

“Hope is the only thing that we have right now.”

An Iranian state-run foundation said the death toll from US and Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic has risen to 1,230, a toll AFP could not independently verify Iranian media reported yesterday that a sports complex, football stadium, municipality building and shop fronts across Tehran were damaged in Israeli and US strikes on the city.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said his US counterpart Pete Hegseth had assured him of Washington’s firm backing for their joint military campaign against Iran and urged him to continue the operation “to the end”.

‘Catastrophic’

The war could usher in a “prolonged period of flux” for the global economy, warned International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva. Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards have claimed the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf chokepoint through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil flows, with oil tanker transits down 90 percent, according to market intelligence firm Kpler.

A tanker in the waters off Kuwait suffered a “large explosion” that caused an oil spill, the British maritime security agency UKMTO reported.

According to Iranian state TV, Iran struck a US oil tanker in the Gulf with a missile, an incident that could not immediately be independently confirmed.

Facing energy shortages, South Korea said it was activating a $68-billion market stabilisation fund, while China reportedly told oil refiners to stop exporting diesel and gasoline.

With flights scrapped and travellers stranded or hastily repatriated, the war is also hammering tourism in a region that has become a prized destination for holidaymakers worldwide.

“My last group of tourists left three days ago, and all the other groups planned for March have been cancelled,” said Nazih Rawashdeh, a tour guide near Irbid, in northern Jordan.

“This is the start of the high season here. It’s catastrophic,” he said.