Iran fired more missiles at Israel and Gulf Arab states on Thursday, demonstrating Tehran’s continued ability to strike its neighbours even as US President Donald Trump claimed the threat from the country was nearly eliminated.
Iran’s attacks on Gulf states along with its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted the world’s energy supplies with effects far beyond the Middle East. That has proved to be Iran’s greatest strategic advantage in the war.
Britain planned to hold a call with nearly three dozen countries about how to reopen the strait once the fighting is over.
Trump has insisted the strait can be taken by force — but said it is not up to the US to do that. In an address to the American people on Wednesday night, he encouraged countries that depend on oil from Hormuz to “build some delayed courage” and go “take it.”
Before the US and Israel started the war on February 28 with strikes on Iran, the waterway was open to traffic and 20 per cent of all traded oil used passed through it.
Iran continues to strike Israel and Gulf countries
Iran responded defiantly to Trump’s speech, in which the American president claimed US military action had been so decisive that “one of the most powerful countries” is “really no longer a threat”.
A spokesman for Iran’s military, Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, insisted on Thursday that Tehran maintains hidden stockpiles of arms, munitions and production facilities. He said facilities targeted so far by US strikes are “insignificant”.
Just before Trump began his address — in which he said US “core strategic objectives are nearing completion” — explosions were heard in Dubai as air defences worked to intercept an Iranian missile barrage.
Less than a half-hour after the president was done, Israel said its military was also working to intercept incoming missiles. Sirens sounded in Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, immediately after the speech.
Attacks continued across Iran on Thursday, with strikes reported in multiple cities.
In Lebanon — home to Iran-backed Hezbollah militants who are fighting Israel, which has launched a ground invasion — an Israeli strike killed four people in the south, the Health Ministry said.
More than 1900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 US service members have been killed.
More than 1200 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced in Lebanon. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.
Nearly three dozen nations will talk about securing the Strait of Hormuz
Britain accused Iran on Thursday of holding the world’s economy hostage as diplomats from more than 40 countries held talks on ways to press Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The US didn’t attend the virtual meeting, which came after US President Donald Trump made clear that he thinks securing the waterway is not America’s job. Trump has also disparaged America’s European allies for failing to support the war and renewed his threats to pull the US out of NATO.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the talks, which focused on political and diplomatic rather than military means, showed “the strength of our international determination” to reopen the strait.
The 41 countries represented came from all continents except Antarctica, a reflection of the global tremors from a war that has sparked shortages of fuel and fertiliser and higher prices for food far beyond the Middle East.
“We have seen Iran hijack an international shipping route to hold the global economy hostage,” Cooper said at the start of the meeting. Cooper said “unsustainable” spikes in oil and food prices were “hitting households and businesses in every corner of the world”.
The UK hopes Thursday’s meeting will help isolate Tehran and weaken its desire to block shipping.
Cooper said participants — senior officials from countries including France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and the United Arab Emirates — discussed increasing diplomatic pressure over Iran’s “reckless” attacks and tightening economic screws to prevent Tehran profiting from control of the strait.
The meeting also discussed working with the UN’s International Maritime Organisation to free 2000 ships and 20,000 seafarers trapped by the conflict, she said.
No concrete measures were announced, however.
Shipping in the strait has slowed to a trickle
Iranian attacks on about two dozen commercial ships, and the threat of more, have halted nearly all traffic in the waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean.
Since March 1, traffic through the strait has dropped 94 per cent over the same period last year, according to the Lloyds List Intelligence shipping data firm. Two ships are confirmed to have paid a fee, the firm said, while others were allowed through based on agreements with their home governments.
Saudi Arabia piped about 1 billion barrels of oil away from the Strait of Hormuz in March, according to maritime data firm Kpler, while Iraq said on Thursday that it had started to truck oil across Syria to avoid the strait.
The 41 countries speaking on Thursday, including all G7 industrialised democracies except the US, as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed a declaration last month demanding Iran stop blocking the strait.
No country appears willing to try to open the strait by force while the war is raging.
French President Emmanuel Macron said opening the strait by force is “unrealistic.”
The reopening of the strait “can only be done in coordination with Iran,” through negotiations that would follow a potential ceasefire, Macron told reporters on Thursday during a visit to South Korea.
France is pushing for an international mission involving European and non-European nations to escort oil and gas tankers through the waterway after the most intense phase of the conflict is over.
The British government said military planners from an unspecified number of countries will meet next week to plot ways to ensure security once the fighting ends, including potential mine-clearing work and “reassurance” for commercial shipping.
But there is a concern that Iran might limit traffic through the waterway even after US and Israeli attacks on it cease.
The idea of an international effort has echoes of the “coalition of the willing,” led by the UK and France, that was assembled to underpin Ukraine’s security in the event of a ceasefire in that war. The coalition is, in part, an attempt to demonstrate to Washington that Europe is doing more for its own security in the face of frequent criticism from Trump.
Oil prices rise again even as Trump suggests the war could end soon
The conflict is driving up prices for oil and natural gas, roiling stock markets, pushing up the cost of gasoline and threatening to make a range of goods, including food, more expensive.
On Thursday, Brent crude, the international standard, rose again and was at $US108 ($156) in spot trading, up about 50 per cent from February 28 when Israel and the US started the war.
Though the oil and gas that typically transits the strait is primarily sold to Asian nations, Japan and South Korea were the only two countries from the region joining Thursday’s call about the strait.
The supply of jet fuel has also been interrupted by the conflict, with consequences for travel worldwide.
NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.
- Download the 9NEWS App here via Apple
