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Iran confirms targeting US bases across the Middle East.
Iran has targeted United States assets across the Gulf Arab states in retaliation for a huge joint attack on Iran by the US and Israel, sparking fears of a regional conflagration.
The Iranian government on Saturday confirmed its attacks on several targets, according to the Fars news agency, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, where airbases with US assets are hosted.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed all Israeli and US military targets in the Middle East have been struck “by the powerful blows of Iranian missiles”.
“This operation will continue relentlessly until the enemy is decisively defeated,” it said. All US assets throughout the region are considered legitimate targets for Iran’s army, it added.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hamid Ghanbari told Al Jazeera that Iran has the right to defend itself and regrets any humanitarian loss caused by the current military escalation.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a letter sent to the United Nations Security Council and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that Iran would “continue to exercise its right of self-defence decisively and without hesitation until the aggression ceases fully and unequivocally”.
Regional attacks
United Arab Emirates
At least one person was killed in Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital, after several missiles launched from Iran were intercepted, according to the country’s state news agency, which provided no further details.
Meanwhile, a fire broke out near a hotel on Dubai’s Palm Islands attraction, with huge plumes of smoke seen from a distance as multiple blasts echoed throughout the day.
The Dubai media office later confirmed an “incident” in a building in the Palm Jumeirah area that resulted in a fire and four people injured.
Bahrain
Bahrain said a missile attack targeted the headquarters of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, which are hosted in the capital, Manama.
The government called it a “treacherous attack” and “a blatant violation of the kingdom’s sovereignty and security”.
Later, footage circulating on social media appeared to show an Iranian Shahed drone smashing through a tower block located near the headquarters, setting the building ablaze.
The Interior Ministry said several residential buildings in Manama, had been hit, reporting on X that civil defence was engaged in firefighting and rescue operations at the affected sites.
Shaikh Abdullah bin Rashid Al Khalifa, Bahrain’s ambassador to the United States, spoke of attacks against “sites within the Kingdom”, calling them a “blatant violation of sovereignty” in a post on X.
Kuwait
Kuwait’s Defence Ministry said that Ali al-Salem Air Base came under attack by a number of ballistic missiles, all of which were intercepted by Kuwaiti air defence systems.
Abdullah al-Rajhi, spokesperson for the General Authority of Civil Aviation in the State of Kuwait, said that a drone targeted Kuwait International Airport, leaving a number of employees with minor injuries and causing material damage to the passenger building.
The official KUNA news agency cited a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying that Kuwait maintains its right to defend itself.
Qatar
In Qatar, the Defence Ministry says it “thwarted” attacks on the country in accordance with a “pre-approved security plan”, intercepting “all missiles” before they reached the country’s territory.
A long-range early warning radar in northern Qatar was targeted by an Iranian missile, according to sources who spoke to Al Jazeera. No injuries were reported.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry said that the targeting of Qatar by a neighbour “cannot be accepted under any justification or pretext”, pointing out that it had always distanced itself from regional conflicts.
Qatar was targeted twice last year, when Iran mounted an attack on the Al Udeid US base in June, and Israel struck a Hamas meeting in Doha in September.
Saudi Arabia
A statement by the Saudi Foreign Ministry confirmed that Iran targeted Riyadh and the kingdom’s eastern region, adding that the attacks were repelled.
“These attacks cannot be justified under any pretext or in any way, and they came despite the Iranian authorities knowing that the Kingdom had confirmed that it would not allow its airspace and territory to be used to target Iran,” it added.
Iraq
An Al Jazeera correspondent reported that Erbil Airport in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq was targeted twice on Saturday.
A drone attack attempted to target Erbil International Airport, but air defences intercepted and shot it down, they added.
The United States still has troops in Iraq‘s autonomous Kurdish region as part of an international coalition against ISIL (ISIS), which is due to be wound up by September under a deal between Washington and Baghdad.
Meanwhile, a drone strike targeted a headquarters of the Kataeb Hezbollah armed group southwest of Baghdad, killing two, according to The Associated Press news service.
Later, there were reports of more strikes hitting Jurf al-Nasr, an Iraqi military base housing the former paramilitary group, which is now integrated into the regular army, according to a source who spoke to news agency AFP.
The Iraqi government’s security media cell announced that “at 7.25 pm (1625 GMT), the Jurf al-Nasr area … was targeted by two air strikes”.
A Kataib Hezbollah official confirmed a new attack had occurred.
Kataib Hezbollah warned in a statement, “we will soon begin attacking American bases in response to their aggression.”
Transportation
Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE all temporarily closed their airspace and condemned Iran’s attacks on their territories.
Sea vessels operating in the Gulf said they had received messages on the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, according to the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency, cited by news agency Reuters.
The key oil export route connects the biggest Gulf oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
Mediator Oman spared
Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Doha, said the only country in the Gulf Cooperation Council that Iran has not struck today thus far is Oman.
Oman has for years served as a liaison between Iran and other nations in the region and beyond. It has played a central role in recent indirect talks between Iran and the US in Oman and Geneva.
Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi on Friday had voiced optimism that peace was “within reach” as Iran had agreed during the talks never to stockpile enriched uranium. Albusaidi described the development as a major breakthrough. Hours later, Israel and the US attacked, and those talks are now dead and buried.
Albusaidi expressed “dismay” at the outbreak of violence and urged Washington to “not get sucked in further” into the conflict. “This is not your war,” he said.
The GCC is an alliance of six countries in the Arabian Peninsula: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, established in 1981 to promote economic, security, cultural and social cooperation.
“Here in Doha, in the last few hours, we’ve heard at least a dozen explosions. The majority of them sound like they were Patriot defence missiles intercepting incoming Iranian missiles,” Basravi said.
“As far as Iran is concerned, with the US and Israel firing the first shot in this latest go-round, everything is now probably fair game,” he added.
Meanwhile, Syrian state media reported that a missile explosion killed four people and injured numerous others in an industrial area of Suwayda, without noting the source of the missile.
