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Bloomberg – Iran Defies Trump With Energy Strikes As War Costs Rise

Iran stepped up its assault on key oil and gas infrastructure across the Middle East, defying US President Donald Trump’s calls for restraint and triggering a fresh surge in energy prices that have highlighted the cost of the ever-widening conflict.

The Islamic Republic targeted sites in countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates with a wave of drone and missile attacks on Thursday, a retaliation for Israel’s assault on Iran’s giant South Pars gas field the previous day.

The sharp escalation, with the bombing of more energy facilities from both sides, threatened to draw in both Gulf and European powers and exposed tensions between the US and Israel.

For Washington, the costs of the conflict it launched against Tehran alongside Israel were becoming clearer as the war neared the end of its third week. On Thursday, Iran said its air defense “seriously damaged” a US F-35 stealth fighter, with US Central Command saying one of the jets made an emergency landing and the pilot was in stable condition

The Pentagon also asked Congress for an additional $200 billion to pay for the war against Iran, a person familiar with the matter said. The enormous funding request suggested the US was girding for a protracted conflict, though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth downplayed concerns and said the US was “on plan” with its war aims.

“It takes money to kill bad guys,” Hegseth said in a combative news conference where he denied “that we’re somehow spinning toward an endless abyss or a forever war or quagmire.”

But with no end in sight, oil and gas prices soared once again, and bonds tumbled amid widening fears the war will stoke inflation and hurt economic growth. Equities in Asia and Europe extended losses, though US stocks staged a sharp recovery late in the session as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country would help the US open the Strait of Hormuz.

Yet the vital waterway remained effectively shut, even as Iran assault on regional energy facilities continued. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi vowed in a post on X to show “ZERO restraint” if the country’s energy infrastructure was hit again.

As part of the barrage, Saudi Arabia said a drone hit its Samref refinery on the Red Sea, a vital exit route for the world’s biggest oil exporter, while the kingdom said it also shot down ballistic missiles fired toward the capital, Riyadh.

Qatar reported “extensive damage” at the world’s largest liquefied natural gas export plant and the UAE shut a major gas facility due to falling debris from missiles. Two oil refineries in Kuwait were struck by drones that caused fires, according to Kuwait Petroleum Corp. Iraq also reported a loss of power generation after Iran halted gas supplies from South Pars in the wake of the Israeli attack.

The latest attacks increased the potential for other countries to join the conflict. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud warned overnight that the kingdom’s restraint isn’t “unlimited,” and warned it could take military action.

“It could be a day, two days, or a week,” he told reporters in Riyadh, adding the relationship between the kingdom and Tehran has “completely shattered.”

The energy strikes also frayed close ties between the US and Israel, with Trump saying in a social media post late Wednesday that “NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL” on South Pars. While he threatened the US “will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field” if Iran continued hitting Qatar, Trump also hit out at Netanyahu.

“I told him, ‘don’t do that.’ And he won’t do that,” Trump said Thursday at the White House, referring to Netanyahu.

On Thursday morning, Trump’s spy chief Tulsi Gabbard acknowledged the US and Israel had different goals in the Iran war. The US was focused more on degrading Tehran’s military, while Israel was focusing on eliminating the country’s leadership. In a briefing in Israel, Netanyahu said Israel would help US forces reopen Hormuz and acted alone in hitting Iran’s gas assets.

Still, Brent crude prices soared as high as $119 a barrel on Thursday before easing to end the session near $108 a barrel. Prices are now at the highest level since July 2022.

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Bloomberg – As the US and Israeli air campaign against Iran enters its third week, Tehran has continued to strike out across the Middle East.

Iranian drones and missiles have increasingly been aimed at economic and political targets, including energy infrastructure, data centers and airports, as Iran tries to disrupt oil and gas markets and inflict lasting damage on the economies of the US and its allies in the region.

The tactic is a demonstration of Iran’s desire — and ability — to hold out and fight back against a bigger, better armed adversary, according to Seth Jones, president of the Defense and Security Department at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The Iranians really established themselves as a regime capable of conducting asymmetrical activities,” Jones said. “I’m not surprised at Iran’s ability to continue doing this, because the Iranian regime, the way it’s been structured, is to withstand significant pressure.”

A Bloomberg News analysis of data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, an organization known as ACLED, shows 823 documented Iranian airstrikes, 483 of which were intercepted, since the war began on Feb. 28 through March 13. It also shows that 1,879 US and Israeli hits were recorded (1,661 by Israeli military and 218 by US forces), with at least 73 of those intercepted.

Iranian attacks have killed at least 30 people, according to official reports. US-Israeli strikes on Iran, meanwhile, killed 1,858 people during the first 12 days of fighting, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, and at least 700 others in Lebanon.

The 12-day US and Israeli war against Iran in June was measured. Tehran warned the governments in Washington and Doha in advance that it intended to target the Al Udeid Air Base — an American military facility — and both the US and Israel focused their strikes on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear installations.

This time is different.

The Islamic Republic is targeting economic, civilian, political and military sites in Israel, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Oman and Bahrain. It has also struck Cyprus and Azerbaijan, and NATO on Friday intercepted a third missile fired at Turkey from Iran – though Iran denied involvement.

The US and Israel, meanwhile, are mainly focusing their attacks on Iran’s leadership and entire military network, while also striking targets in Lebanon, where Iran has proxies.

Such a rapid widening of a conflict is “unprecedented,” said Clionadh Raleigh, a professor of political geography and conflict at the UK’s University of Sussex who also heads ACLED. “Even in World War II it wasn’t within days. That’s down to Iran’s response.”

“They may be running out of medium range and missile launchers but Iran has an endless number of pretty cheap drones,” she added of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They are “going to keep going until they have nothing left.”

Initially, Iran was mostly zeroing in on military infrastructure: interceptors, air defenses and communication systems, and bases. Then, it started hitting energy and water infrastructure, and airports.

In a statement read out on state TV on Thursday, Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said that the plan now was to open “new fronts,” without providing details. He vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz — the world’s most important channel for energy shipments — shut.

“For Iran, victory is based on regime survival and some international agreement that agrees to a permanent cessation of hostilities with some economic relief also guaranteed,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

“Hard to imagine that they can achieve that but those are the goals.”

The war has been experienced differently in each nation involved. In Lebanon, where there are no sirens to warn of incoming strikes, there’s chaos. In the Gulf, interceptors are shooting down many missiles in the sky, though some have landed with devastating effect.

Governments are banning live broadcasts and the sharing of photos and video that identify locations of damage. And satellite imaging companies like Planet Labs are releasing images with a 14-day delay so that they can’t be used for real-time military intelligence.

Among casualties in the Gulf are an 11-year-old girl in Kuwait who died from shrapnel wounds, and a woman killed after an Iranian assault on a residential building in Bahrain’s capital Manama in the second week of the conflict. The Iranian drone, which was reportedly heading for the US naval base in the small Gulf archipelago, hit the Breaker tower, leaving many of the high-rise’s top floors engulfed in flames.

Just two days into the war, Iran began targeting the biggest oil and gas assets in the Persian Gulf, launching missiles and drones at ports, pipelines and processing units.

Energy prices have surged, with oil making record moves — nearing $120 a barrel and sometimes falling just as quickly — as traders try to gauge the US and Israeli endgame.

In most cases, Iran has caused little direct damage, but its strikes have led to precautionary shutdowns and forces majeures. Operations were suspended at Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery, Aramco’s Ras Tanura plant, following an Iranian drone strike in the area.

For Kuwaitis, the hostilities are stirring up memories of two previous wars: the 1991 US-led Desert Storm operation to liberate the oil-rich nation from brutal Iraqi occupation and the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which toppled Saddam Hussein.

Saad Rashed Al-Enezi lived through both. He said that while this latest conflict was expected, its scale and open-ended nature came as a surprise.

“In the first few days, people were really scared,” said the 65-year-old, who fought alongside the US army as a volunteer during the first Gulf War. But, he added, now many of them are continuing with some sense of normality, even though it’s been home schooling and work options for most.

The country’s pension fund headquarters — the Public Institution for Social Security — was hit on the night of March 7, causing an extensive fire that burned for hours across floors, in the heart of the capital.

Banks said employees would no longer be working in high rises, and operations were decentralized across branches. The pension fund also said it would continue activities from alternative sites and that all data had been backed up.

Two US military bases have also been targeted. At Camp Arifjan in southern Kuwait, satellite images show damage to radar systems.

And at Ali Al Salem Air Base, west of Kuwait City, fuel storage and aircraft hangers were hit, along with often expensive and rare radar systems that detect incoming missiles and drones.

“The damage is minimal compared to the huge firepower sent to us, though we do fear shrapnel and debris falling from the skies,” Al-Enezi said. “When will it finish, and at what cost?”

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The Financial Times – Since the US and Israel attacked Iran last month, people across the country have received text messages filled with everything from promises of imminent victory to exaggerated claims about American casualties.

But one message on Friday, addressed to the “people of Iran”, contained a warning. “The wicked enemy, desperate to achieve its goals in the battlefield, is once again seeking to instil fear and instigate street chaos,” it read.

“Internal traitors to the homeland” who take to the streets in collusion would face “a blow stronger than January 8”, the date Iranian security forces launched a deadly crackdown on anti-regime protesters in which thousands of people were killed. The message ends with “#The_Final_Battle”.

Sent by the intelligence arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the message is a stark example of the ways in which Iran’s media machine — in overdrive since the start of the war — is being deployed to contain any hint of domestic dissent.

Along with accounts of military triumphs and patriotic cartoons, state media, officials and commentators have deployed aggressive rhetoric, threatening to shoot protesters and confiscate property.

“Once the dust from all this sedition settles, we’ll grab you by the collar, one by one,” said a pro-regime figure on live television this week, addressing “liberals, supporters of the west and those in love with Zionism and imperialism”. “We’ll make your mothers mourn for you.”

There have been no signs of the sort of unrest that spread across the country in January, during which US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says more than 7,000 people were killed. Officials, who blamed armed foreign-backed agitators for the violence, put the death toll at over 3,000.

However, the US and Israel have repeatedly sought to incite another uprising, with President Donald Trump encouraging Iranians to use what “will be probably your only chance for generations” to take over the government.

Israel, meanwhile, has targeted police stations and security checkpoints with air strikes in a strategy Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said is designed to provide a “unique opportunity” to “overthrow the regime of the ayatollahs and gain your freedom”.

Iranian officials are taking no chances. Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said anyone taking to the streets would be treated in the same manner as the country’s enemies, while lawmaker Salar Velayatmadar issued a stark threat directly to parents.

“It won’t be our fault if your sons and daughters won’t listen. The authority to open fire has been given,” Velayatmadar said in comments on state TV. “We don’t want your children to get killed, because they are ignorant. So make sure you control them.”

Supporters of the Islamic republic have held regular rallies since the start of the war — broadcast live on state TV — in shows of strength designed to project the regime’s control of the streets.

This included nationwide demonstrations on Friday to mark Quds Day, the last Friday of Ramadan, which went ahead even as Israeli air strikes targeted areas nearby.

Authorities have also pasted banners with pro-regime rhetoric across Tehran, including several depicting assassinated leader Ali Khamenei handing over Iran’s national flag to his son Mojtaba, who was selected as the new supreme leader this week. “The divine hand became visible,” it reads. “The young Khamenei emerged.”

AI-generated images of Mojtaba, who has not been seen in public and is believed to have been injured, have been widely used in pro-regime rallies and on social media platforms. One dramatised video, disseminated by Revolutionary Guards-affiliated outlets such as Tasnim and Fars, depicts him directing missile strikes in the wake of his father’s assassination.

Since the war began, authorities have enforced a near-total internet blackout, cutting off most Iranians from online access. They have also taken steps to jam satellite TV channels, many of which Tehran sees as supportive of opposition groups.

This has left many Iranians struggling to verify information, viewing state-run TV as saturated with outdated propaganda portraying a one-sided victorious narrative of the war that favours the Islamic republic.

These channels have disseminated footage of Tehran’s missiles flying into the sky, destruction in Israel, oil tankers in flames and smoke rising from high-rises in Dubai after Iranian attacks.

They had also been warned against disseminating information or footage of bombed locations, according to the judiciary, while the intelligence ministry threatened to punish anyone sending pictures to opposition-affiliated satellite channels — calling them the enemy’s “fifth column” and US-Israeli “mercenaries”.

Radan, the police chief, said 81 people had been arrested for leaking national security information to Iran International, an opposition station, which has openly advocated for US and Israeli military action and regime change to bring back Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late ousted Shah.

Local media on Friday reported a person had been arrested in the southwestern city of Shiraz for selling unfiltered internet via Starlink in several provinces.

The judiciary too has said it will seize the property of members of the Iranian diaspora accused of harming the country’s national interests.

For many Iranians, living at home under heavy US and Israeli bombardment, the war of words has only heightened the feeling of being trapped. “We are being targeted not only with actual bombs, but we are also bombarded with misinformation and war propaganda,” said Farid, a school teacher, using a pseudonym.

“On one side, there is the Islamic republic telling us that we are the absolute winners of this war. And on the other hand, overseas opposition groups keep telling us that the Islamic republic is just a step away from collapse.”

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ABC News – Even as the attacks on Iran continue, with smoke rising from airstrike targets, some Iranians are privately expressing hope that the turmoil could yield change that many have yearned for.

Watching conflicts, especially three of them in less than a year, has been “terrifying” for Amir, an Iranian journalist who asked ABC News not to use his real name over security concerns.

He lived through last June’s 12-day war between Iran and Israel and reported on it as more than 1,200 people were killed, according to Iranian state media. After the U.S. targeted Iran’s nuclear sites, that war ended with a ceasefire, which did not last more than eight months until a new war broke on the last day of last month.

He then witnessed what he also describes as “a war” in January, when the ruling regime of Iran committed massacres and killed its own citizens in different cities across the country.

In an almost complete communication blockade, the Islamic Republic security forces killed at least 6,800 protestors, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a U.S.-based group that relies on a network of activists in Iran.

And then, the new war broke as the U.S. and Israel launched a military operation on multiple targets in Iran on Feb. 28, following months of mediated and indirect talks between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s nuclear program, during which American military started building up its military presence in the Persian Gulf.

The ongoing war against Iran by U.S. and Israeli forces, however, is “distinctive” to Amir and many others, especially since the news of killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the country, was confirmed.

While Khamenei’s supporters took to the streets in big crowds mourning his death following the confirmation on March 1 of his death, other Iranians celebrated his death by dancing, singing and setting off fireworks in the country and abroad.

“Some people, at least in the early days, were happy about the war. Especially with the news of the assassinations,” Amir told ABC News on Wednesday. “But gradually, some also began to feel scared.”

While Iranian state media extensively airs images of the regime’s supportive crowds as they commemorate the slain leader and express their loyalty to the new leader, voices of those who celebrate Khamenei’s death and insist on ending the war are silenced.

ABC News received text and voice messages from several people on the ground who said they want the war to continue until the Iranian regime falls. They asked that ABC News to not use their names for their safety, fearing they could be detained or worse for speaking out.

An Iranian woman in Tehran, who asked to be called Sahar, told ABC News this week that it was President Donald Trump fulfilling his promise to Iranians, saying she wants the war to continue until the regime falls.

“We are worried that maybe this war stops before the regime change, and we want this war as help, as Mr. Trump has promised us,” Sahar said.

Mohsen, a 36-year-old, started to believe that “only outside pressure could remove the regime in Iran,” after he witnessed the regime’s brutal suppression of 2009’s peaceful nationwide protests.

He explained how the Islamic Republic consistently killed and imprisoned protesters and activists who pursued change over decades.

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Xinhua – Regional tensions have remained high since joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Tehran and other Iranian cities starting from Feb. 28, to which Iran and Iran-aligned groups responded with attacks on Israeli and U.S. interests across the Middle East.

As of mid-March, various reports indicated that over 1,300 civilians have been killed in Iran due to U.S. and Israeli strikes, with data from the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency suggesting 1,168 to over 1,200 deaths in the initial weeks of the conflict.

More than 10,000 civilians have been injured, and about 3.2 million have been displaced, according to Iranian health officials and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

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BBC – “I don’t even think it was his message,” an Iranian woman in her 40s told the BBC after her country’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei gave his first official address in the form of a statement read out on state TV.

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HIRU News – The US-Israeli military assault on Iran has damaged at least 42,914 civilian units, a government spokesperson reported Saturday, as regional violence triggered by the campaign entered a third week.

Of those, 36,489 were residential units and were 43 emergency bases, the spokesperson added. At least 120 schools have been damaged.

More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran, the country’s ambassador to the UN said Tuesday. However, the death toll could be much higher, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) on Friday, which said at least 1,858 people killed. Iranian authorities have not updated the official tally in more than a week.

Up to 3.2 million people have been displaced in Iran, the UN’s refugee agency said on Thursday. Migrant workers and refugee families from other war-ravaged nations in the region are among those most vulnerable, the UN added.

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Shafaq News – The United States targeted military fortifications on Iran’s Kharg Island on Saturday, warning that energy infrastructure could become the second target.

Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that the US attack on Kharg Island —located about 25 km off Iran’s southwestern coast and roughly 483 km northwest of the Strait of Hormuz— struck military defensive positions and the Joushan naval base without damaging oil facilities.

US President Donald Trump said American forces had “obliterated” Iranian military targets on Kharg Island and warned that oil infrastructure there could be attacked next, accusing Tehran of seeking an agreement he said Washington would reject.

Iranian officials said any attack on the country’s oil or economic infrastructure would prompt strikes on facilities linked to the United States across the region.

The commander of the aerospace force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also revealed that the accuracy of Iranian missile strikes had doubled over the past 48 hours.

The escalation follows coordinated US and Israeli attacks launched against Iran on February 28, which triggered a wider confrontation across the region and disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global energy shipping route.

At least 13 American soldiers have been killed since the start of the conflict, according to reported figures, including six crew members of an aerial refueling aircraft that crashed in Iraq on March 12.

Estimates by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) as of March 13 recorded 4,765 casualties in Iran, including 205 children, while 20 hospitals, 36 schools, and 98 residential buildings or neighborhoods have been damaged. At least 3.2 million people have been internally displaced across the country.

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Deutsche Welle – The ongoing US-Israeli war against Iran has triggered a renewed communications blackout, with many people inside the country simply not reachable per telephone or via the internet.

Still, DW managed to contact a single mother from Tehran, who fled the Iranian metropolis on the third night of the war last week.

“I left the city after a building in our street was bombed,” she told DW. “We saw multiple rockets coming down.”

Initially, the 42-year-old photographer expected targeted strikes against senior Iranian officials. She believed she could simply wait out the bombing in her apartment building, and hoped the military campaign would eventually bring liberation.

But with bombs raining down on her neighborhood, she decided to flee. The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, left Tehran with her child and drove to stay with a relative living in the outskirts. She said she is happy to no longer be in the city.

Fear of poisoned rain in Tehran

People who stayed behind are now facing the growing danger of acid rain, after the US-Israel strikes hit multiple oil depots around the Iranian capital.

Thick, dark clouds of smoke gathered over the metropolis after the strikes, and the Iranian environment agency has urged citizens to stay at home. The Red Crescent warned that rain could contain chemicals harmful to skin and lungs.

Oil tanks aren’t the only sites being hit inside the densely populated Iranian city of nearly 10 million people. Every strike has reportedly claimed civilian lives — and with officials not sounding air raid sirens and providing no access to bomb shelters, ordinary people don’t know how to protect themselves.

Many people are also unable or unwilling to leave Tehran, home to their jobs and livelihoods.

More than 1,200 civilians killed

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) estimates over 1,200 civilians have already been killed in Iran, including at least 194 children. HRANA has also recorded the deaths of 187 Iranian troops, alongside 316 others whose status — civilian or military — has yet to be determined.

The civilian victims include at least 110 schoolchildren between the ages of 7 and 12, who were killed in an airstrike on at a girls school in Minab, in southern Iran, on February 28. The US has said it is investigating the strike.

No guidance for ordinary Iranians
“No party in this war is playing by the rules,” said Moin Khazaeli, an Iranian human rights researcher based in Sweden.

“Infrastructure, like Iranian oil depots, are not exactly military targets, and neither are civilian infrastructure and residential areas, that the Islamic Republic is targeting in the neighboring countries. The Islamic Republic is not protecting its own population. There are no bomb shelters or air raid alerts, and no information is provided to tell people how to behave, now that the internet is off.”

Khazaeli told DW that international bodies should make sure that Iranians gain access to humanitarian aid.

The exiled political scientist and criminologist also said the regime was “responsible for what is happening right now.”

Khazaeli said the international organizations need to push the regime toward a peaceful transition of power, which would allow the Iranian people to “decide for themselves how they want to live.”

But to many, the calls to oust the Islamic regime amid the US-Israeli strikes sound like a distant dream.

Khamenei after Khamenei

After surviving the brutal protest crackdown in January, government critics may have hoped that the US would stage a regime change through targeted killings of senior Iranian officials.

These hopes were fueled by the airstrike on the Tehran residence of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the conflict, which killed the supreme leader and many other senior state officials and military commanders.

But with every passing day of the war, hopes of a quick regime change are fading.

The regime seems shaken, but so far not broken by the airstrikes, and the surviving clerics have moved to appoint a new supreme leader — Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late ayatollah.

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