Iran keeps up pressure on oil infrastructure as global energy crisis fears grow

Iran attacked commercial ships across the Persian Gulf and targeted Dubai International Airport on Wednesday, escalating a campaign of squeezing the oil-rich region as global energy concerns mounted and American and Israeli airstrikes pounded the Islamic Republic.

Two Iranian drones hit near Dubai International Airport, home to the long-haul carrier Emirates and the world’s busiest for international travel. Four people were wounded, but flights continued, the Dubai Media Office said.

Iran’s joint military command announced it would start targeting banks and financial institutions in the Middle East.

That would put at risk particularly Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, which is home to many international financial institutions, as well as Saudi Arabia and the island kingdom of Bahrain.

Earlier, a projectile hit a Thai cargo ship off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, setting it ablaze.

Authorities are searching for three missing crew members from the Mayuree Naree after 20 were rescued by the Omani navy, according to Thailand’s Marine Department.

Meanwhile, an assessment from Israeli intelligence said it believed Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was wounded at start of the war.

An Israeli intelligence official and a reservist with knowledge of the situation gave no details on the nature of the injuries.

The 56-year-old Mr Khamenei — the son of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — has not been seen since succeeding his father on Monday.

His father and wife both were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the first day of the conflict.

Separately, Kuwait said its defences downed eight Iranian drones and Saudi Arabia said it intercepted five heading toward the kingdom’s Shaybah oil field.

Iran has effectively stopped cargo traffic in the narrow strait through which about a fifth of all oil is shipped.

It has also targeted oil fields and refineries in Gulf Arab nations, aiming at generating enough global economic pain to pressure the United States and Israel to end their strikes.

The UN Security Council is to vote later on Wednesday on a resolution sponsored by the Gulf Cooperation Council demanding Iran stop attacking its Arab neighbours.

Witnesses reported continuous airstrikes hitting Tehran after Israel said it had renewed its attacks.

Explosions were also heard in Beirut and in southern Lebanon after Israel said it was hitting targets connected to Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.

The attacks set a building ablaze in central Beirut’s densely populated Aicha Bakkar area, engulfing the top two floors. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said four people were wounded.

Other Israeli strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon killed 14 people, and a Red Cross worker also died of wounds sustained on Monday, when his team was hit by an Israeli strike while they were rescuing people from an earlier attack.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said that 570 people have been killed in the country since that latest fighting began.

Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel after the United States and Israel began the wider war with their surprise bombardment of Iran.

Israel warned of Iranian attacks and sirens rang out in Tel Aviv and elsewhere, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed six ballistic missiles launched toward Prince Sultan Air Base, a major US- and Saudi-operated facility, and intercepted two drones over the eastern city of Hafar al-Batin.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre, run by the British military, reported an attack on a container ship off the United Arab Emirates, saying the “extent of the damage is currently unknown but under investigation by the crew”.

Another ship was hit by a projectile in the Persian Gulf, it said. The crew was reported safe.

The ship attacks follow intense American airstrikes targeting Iranian navy assets and the port city of Bandar Abbas on Tuesday.

The Iranian threat against financial institutions did not identify any specifically.

It came after a Tehran location of Bank Sepah, the state-owned financial institution sanctioned by the U.S. over funding its armed forces, came under attack early Wednesday, killing staffers there, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

At the United Nations, the Security Council was to vote on the Gulf Cooperation Council resolution, according to diplomats.

The draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, condemns Iran’s attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan.

The measure calls for an immediate end to all strikes and threats against neighbouring states, including through proxies.

It would be the first Security Council resolution considered since the start of the war on February 28.

Oil prices remained well below Monday’s peaks but the price of Brent crude, the international standard, was still up some 20% Wednesday from when the war began, and consumers around the world are already feeling the pain at the pump.

Germany and Austria said they are releasing parts of their oil reserves following an International Energy Agency request for its members to release 400 million barrels to help temper energy price spikes.

The largest-ever previous collective release of emergency stocks by IEA member countries was 182.7 million barrels, in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Japan also said it will release some of its reserves starting on Monday.

The US military said it had destroyed 16 Iranian minelayers near the Strait of Hormuz, though US President Donald Trump said in social media posts that there were no reports yet of Iran mining the passage.

If the strait is mined, it could take at least weeks to clean it up once the conflict is over.

Some tankers, believed linked to Iran, are continuing to get through the strait making so-called “dark” transits – meaning they aren’t turning on their automatic identification system (AIS) trackers, which show where vessels are.

Vessels carrying sanctioned Iranian crude often turn off their AIS trackers.

The security firm Neptune P2P Group said there had been seven ships pass through the strait since March 8.

Of them, five were linked to Iranian-associated shipping, it said.

In ordinary times the strait typically sees 100 ships or more transit daily from the Persian Gulf into the Gulf of Oman.

Meanwhile, the commodity-tracking firm Kpler said Iran has restarted crude exports through its Jask oil terminal on the Gulf of Oman. A tanker loaded roughly 2 million barrels at Jask on March 7, it said.

In addition to the 570 killed in Lebanon, Iran has said that more than 1,300 people have been killed there and Israel has reported 12 people dead.

The US has lost seven soldiers while another eight have suffered severe injuries.