DUBAI/TEL AVIV: Iran fired at Israel and targets across the Middle East on Wednesday, while at least three ships were hit in the Gulf, demonstrating Tehran can still fight back and disrupt energy supplies despite the most intense U.S.-Israeli strikes yet. Oil prices that shot up earlier this week have eased and stock markets have rebounded, with investors betting for now that U.S. President Donald Trump will find a quick way to end the war he began alongside Israel nearly two weeks ago. But so far there has been no let-up on the ground, or any sign that ships can resume sailing through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil has been blockaded behind a narrow channel along the Iranian coast in the worst disruption to energy supplies since the oil shocks of the 1970s. The Pentagon described its attacks on Iran on Tuesday as the most intensive of the war so far. After offices of an Iranian bank were hit overnight, Iran said it would now attack U.S. and Israeli banking targets across the Middle East.
ISRAEL BELIEVES MOJTABA KHAMENEI INJURED
A source told Reuters that Israel believed Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, had been injured early in the war, when airstrikes killed his father, mother, wife and a son.
Reuters was unable to confirm the younger Khamenei’s condition, but state television has used a term that means “wounded veteran” to describe him. He has not appeared in public or issued any direct message since being named the successor for his long-ruling father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Iranian military said on Tuesday it had launched missiles at a U.S. base in northern Iraq, the U.S. naval headquarters for the Middle East in Bahrain, and at Be’er Ya’akov city in central Israel. Explosions rang out in Bahrain, while in Dubai four people were injured by two drones that crashed near the airport, the world’s busiest for international travellers, now scaled back because of the war.
In Tehran itself, residents said they were growing accustomed to the nightly airstrikes that have sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing to the countryside and contaminated the city with black rain from oil smoke.
“There were bombings last night but I did not get scared like before. Life goes on,” Farshid, 52, told Reuters by phone.
Three more merchant ships were struck in the Gulf by unknown projectiles, according to agencies that monitor maritime security, raising the number of ships reportedly hit since the war began to 14.
Crew were evacuated from a Thai-flagged bulk freighter, after an explosion caused a fire on board. A Japan-flagged container ship and a Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier also sustained damage.
IEA PROPOSES HUGE RELEASE OF OIL RESERVES
Oil prices, which shot up briefly to nearly $120 a barrel on Monday, have since settled below $90, suggesting investors are betting that Trump will be able to halt the war and reopen the strait before an oil supply shock causes an economic meltdown.
Sources said the International Energy Agency would recommend releasing as much as 400 million barrels from global strategic oil reserves to stabilise prices, by far a record. That would still amount to less than three weeks’ flow through the strait.
U.S. and Israeli officials say their strikes have severely damaged Iran’s missile and drone capabilities, as well as decapitating its leadership. Their stated aim is to end Iran’s ability to project force beyond its borders and destroy its nuclear programme, though they have also invited Iranians to rise up and topple the country’s clerical rulers.
But the longer the war goes on, the greater the risk to the global economy from an energy shock, and if the war ends with Iran’s system of clerical rule still in place Tehran is likely to declare victory.
While many Iranians want change and some openly celebrated the death of the supreme leader whose security forces killed thousands of anti-government protesters just weeks ago, there has been no sign of protest since the war began.
Iran’s police chief Ahmadreza Radan said on Wednesday anyone taking to the streets would be treated “as an enemy not a protestor. All our security forces have their fingers on the trigger.”
Iran has said it will not let ships through the strait until U.S.-Israeli attacks cease, and it will not negotiate. Trump has threatened to hit Iran “twenty times harder” if it blockades the strait, but U.S. officials have not revealed any military plan to unblock it by force.
The U.S. Central Command said 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels had been “eliminated” near the strait on Tuesday.
In Israel, explosions from air defences intercepting missiles punctuated the pre-dawn darkness as air raid sirens blared and Israelis scrambled to safe rooms and shelters.
Israeli launched a barrage on Beirut aimed at rooting out the Iran-backed group Hezbollah which has fired into Israel from Lebanon in solidarity with Tehran.
More than 1,300 Iranian civilians have been killed since the U.S. and Israeli air strikes began on February 28, according to Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani. Scores have also been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Iranian strikes on Israel have killed at least 11 people and two Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon. Washington says seven U.S. soldiers have been killed and around 140 have been wounded.
