DOHA: US President Donald Trump threatened to “massively blow up” a vast Iranian gas field unless Tehran stops striking Qatari energy facilities, which sustained extensive damage on Thursday. Crude oil prices surged five per cent as the latest strikes fed fears that the nearly three-week-old Middle East war could inflict lasting damage on global energy supplies.
Tehran has carried out a series of attacks on Gulf energy sites, including on Qatar’s huge Ras Laffan LNG facility, in retaliation for an Israeli strike on Iran’s South Pars gas field — part of the world’s largest natural gas reservoir. Trump called in a social media post for strikes on both Iranian and Qatari energy sites to halt.
Washington “knew nothing” of Israel’s earlier attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field, he said, vowing that “NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL” on the site if Tehran stops attacking Qatar. But if Iran did not comply, the United States would “massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field”, Trump warned.
– ‘Extensive damage’ –
Oil and gas prices soared on Thursday after Iran hit the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Qatar and threatened to destroy the region’s energy infrastructure, and Donald Trump warned of a furious US response if such attacks continued. International benchmark Brent surged 10 per cent before falling back while European gas rose 35 per cent after Iran attacked Qatar’s huge Ras Laffan LNG facility in retaliation for an Israeli strike on its South Pars gas field.
Iran’s military responded on Thursday with defiance, saying it had been a “major mistake” to hit South Pars, which supplies around 70 per cent of the country’s domestic natural gas. “If it is repeated, subsequent attacks against your energy infrastructure and that of your allies will not stop until their complete destruction, and our response will be far more severe,” operational command Khatam Al Anbiya said in a statement carried by Fars news agency.
Qatar is one of the world’s top liquefied natural gas producers, alongside the United States, Australia and Russia, and its Ras Laffan facility is the world’s largest LNG hub. It has been repeatedly targeted by Iran since the war began, and state-run QatarEnergy said on Thursday that two waves of Iranian strikes had caused “sizeable fires and extensive further damage” to several LNG facilities.
Iranians shop for flowers at the Tajrish Bazaar in northern Tehran. — AFP
Saudi Arabia said on Thursday it reserved the “right to take military actions” if necessary after repeated missile and drone attacks from Iran. The defence ministry said a drone crashed into the Samref refinery in the industrial zone of the Red Sea port of Yanbu, adding that damage assessment was underway. Qatar meanwhile ordered Iran’s military and security attaches along with their staff to leave the country.
Strikes were also reported on Thursday on energy infrastructure in Kuwait, where two oil refineries were hit by drones.
– ‘War of attrition’ –
Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei earlier vowed retaliation for Israel’s attack on its gas facilities. “Every drop of spilled blood comes at a price, and the criminal murderers of these martyrs will soon have to pay it,” read a message posted late on Wednesday on Mojtaba Khamenei’s official Telegram channel. He has not been seen in public since he was appointed to succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by the US and Israeli at the start of the war.
Israel this week also killed national security chief Ali Larijani and intelligence chief Esmail Khatib as part of a long-standing strategy to take out their enemies’ leaders. Yet Tehran is still unleashing attacks across the Middle East. US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard told Congress the Iranian government remained “intact but largely degraded”. “The conflict is drifting into a war of attrition — with no clear signs of regime collapse in Iran,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a senior fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, on X.
– Thousands killed –
A US-based rights group has reported more than 3,000 people killed in Iran by the US-Israeli strikes, a figure that could not be independently verified. In the Iranian capital on Thursday, there was little to suggest a country mired in war. On the eve of Nowruz, the Persian New Year typically marked with celebrations, the city centre filled as usual with traffic jams and street vendors haggling over the price of clothing and fruit.
However, the security presence was even greater than usual, with heavily armed security forces visible on certain thoroughfares as well as an increased number of armoured vehicles. In a post on social media, Trump late on Wednesday said Israel had “violently lashed out” in “anger” in attacking the Iran gas hub. He said that “no more attacks will be made by Israel” on South Pars unless Iran continues to attack Qatar, in which case the US “will massively blow up the entirety” of the field. — AFP
