AP
Dubai
The war in the Middle East spiralled further on Monday as Israel and the US pounded Iran in a campaign that US President Donald Trump said would likely take several weeks.
Tehran and its allies hit back against Israel, neighbouring Gulf states and targets critical to the world’s energy production, leading to global air travel chaos and a surge in energy prices.
Major airports remained closed, stranding travellers, including those in faraway areas who were scheduled to transit through the region. Governments were scrambling to help their citizens get home after the conflict erupted on Saturday, throwing travel plans into turmoil.
Tourists, business travellers and religious pilgrims found themselves stuck unexpectedly in hotels, airports and on cruise ships, with no word on when many airports would reopen or when flights to and through the Middle East would resume. Governments told stranded citizens to shelter in place.
Airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, which are important hubs for travel between Europe, Africa and the West to Asia, remained closed after they were all directly hit by Iranian strikes.
Oil prices rose sharply on Monday as disruptions to tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint raised uncertainty about how US and Israeli attacks on Iran would affect supply to the world economy.
United States’ oil traded 7.6% higher at $72.12 per barrel, while international standard Brent was up 8.6% at $79.11 per barrel. Natural gas futures in Europe jumped more than 40% after Qatar, a major supplier, halted production due to the conflict.
Higher oil prices raise the prospect of costlier gasoline for US drivers as well as increased prices for other goods at a time when people in many countries have been stung by inflation. A key focus was the strait at the southern end of the Persian Gulf, through which 20% of the world’s oil supply passes.
The intensity of the attacks, the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the lack of any apparent exit plan set the stage for a prolonged conflict with far-reaching consequences.
Safe havens in the Mideast like Dubai have seen incoming fire; hundreds of thousands of airline passengers are stranded around the globe; oil prices shot up; and US allies pledged to help stop Iranian missiles and drones.
With no sign of the conflict abating anytime soon, Trump said Monday that the operations are likely to last four to five weeks but that he was prepared “to go far longer than that”.
He said US forces were determined to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, wipe out its naval capacity, stop the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensure that Iran cannot continue to arm and fund allied groups like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which fired missiles at Israel, drawing retaliatory airstrikes.
“This was our last, best chance to strike – what we’re doing right now – and eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime,” Trump said.
Iran has long threatened, if attacked, to drag the region into total war, including targeting Israel, the Gulf Arab states and the flow of crude oil crucial for global energy markets. All of these came under attack on Monday.
The chaos of the conflict became apparent when the US military said Kuwait had “mistakenly shot down” three American F-15E Strike Eagles while Iran was attacking with aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones. United States’ Central Command said all six pilots ejected safely and are in stable condition.
The Gulf state of Qatar meanwhile said its air force had shot down two Iranian Sukhoi Su-24 bombers.
Israel and the US bombed Iranian missile sites and targeted its navy, claiming to have destroyed its headquarters and multiple warships. As several airstrikes hit Iran’s capital of Tehran, the top security official Ali Larijani vowed on X: “We will not negotiate with the United States.”
The death toll grew on all sides. The Iranian Red Crescent Society said that the US-Israeli operation has killed at least 555 people. In Israel, where several locations were hit by Iranian missiles, 11 people were killed. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group also targeted Israel, which responded with strikes on Lebanon, killing more than two dozen people.
Meanwhile, four American troops have been killed, and three people were reported killed in the United Arab Emirates and one each in Kuwait and Bahrain.
With world markets already rattled by the fighting, QatarEnergy said it would stop its production of liquefied natural gas, taking one of the world’s top suppliers off the market. It offered no timeline for restoring its production. European natural gas prices surged by 40% in response.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery came under attack from drones, with defences downing the incoming aircraft, a military spokesman told the state-run Saudi Press Agency. The refinery has a capacity of over half a million barrels of crude oil a day.
Several ships have been attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil trade passes and where Iran has threatened attacks.
