Iran threatened to target recreational and tourist sites worldwide and insisted it was still building missiles on Friday — a show of defiance nearly three weeks into U.S.-Israeli strikes that have killed several of Tehran’s top leaders and hammered its weapons and energy industries.
Iran’s top military spokesman warned that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide won’t be safe for Tehran’s enemies.
Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi made the threat as Iran continues to be hit by American and Israeli airstrikes. It renewed concerns that Tehran or its proxies might strike beyond the Middle East as a pressure tactic in the ongoing war.
With little information coming out of Iran, it was not clear how much damage its arms, nuclear or energy facilities have sustained since the war began on Feb. 28, or even who was truly in charge of the country. But Iran has showed it is still capable of attacks that continue to choke off oil supplies and dent the global economy, raising food and fuel prices.
The U.S. and Israel have offered shifting rationales for the war, from hoping to foment an uprising that topples Iran’s leadership to eliminating its nuclear and missile programs. There have been no public signs of any such uprising, and it’s not clear what capabilities Iran retains or how the war might end.
WATCH | Trump’s war funds request sounds alarm in U.S.:
Trump’s $200B war funds request raises fears about escalation, lack of strategy
Democrats and some Republicans are alarmed by the Trump administration’s pursuit of another $200 billion for the war against Iran, with some saying it signals a dangerous escalation of the conflict and highlights a lack of coherent strategy.
U.S. and Israeli leaders have said that weeks of strikes have decimated Iran’s military. Airstrikes have also killed its supreme leader, the head of its Supreme National Security Council and a raft of other top-ranking military and political leaders.
The United States is deploying three more warships and roughly 2,500 additional Marines to the Middle East, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.
The official said the USS Boxer and two other amphibious assault ships have deployed, and two other U.S. officials confirmed that ships were deploying, without saying where they were headed.
All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday claimed Iran’s navy was sunk and its air force in tatters, while asserting that its ability to produce ballistic missiles had been taken out. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard disputed the missile claim on Friday.
WATCH | Iran warned against further strikes:
Gulf-state leaders warn Iran against further strikes on fuel sites
Leaders of Persian Gulf countries have warned Iran against further attacks on oil and gas facilities that are driving up global fuel prices, calling them a dangerous escalation.
“We are producing missiles even during war conditions, which is amazing, and there is no particular problem in stockpiling,” spokesman Gen. Ali Mohammad Naeini was quoted as saying in Iran’s state-run IRAN newspaper.
Naeini added that Iran had no intention of seeking a quick end to the war, and will “continue until the enemy is completely exhausted.”
A short time after the statement was released, Iranian state television said Naeini was killed in an airstrike.
The country’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei also released a rare statement, saying Iran’s enemies need to have their “security” taken away.
Khamenei said the U.S. and Israeli attacks were based on an illusion that killing Iran’s top leaders could cause the overthrow of the government. He commended Iranians for “building a nationwide defensive front” and “delivering such a bewildering blow that the enemy fell into contradictions and irrational statements.”
Khamenei hasn’t been seen since he succeeded his father, the 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the first day of the war.
WATCH | Gas site in Qatar could take years to repair:
Qatar warns gas facility repair could take 5 years as concerns grow over knock-on effects of war
Qatar says an Iranian strike on Ras Laffan, the world’s largest liquified natural gas plant, has taken out 17 per cent of its export capacity. Persian Gulf states are also major producers of fertilizer, and concerns are mounting over what may happen to global food prices should that supply chain be disrupted. Attacks on energy sites continue
Iran has stepped up its attacks on energy sites in Gulf Arab states after Israel bombed Iran’s massive South Pars offshore natural gas field earlier in the week.
Two waves of Iranian drones attacked a Kuwaiti oil refinery early Friday, sparking a fire. The Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, which can process some 730,000 barrels of oil per day, is one of the largest in the Middle East. It was damaged Thursday in another Iranian attack.
To the south, Bahrain said a fire broke out after shrapnel from an intercepted projectile landed on a warehouse, and Saudi Arabia reported shooting down multiple drones targeting its oil-rich Eastern Province.
In the U.A.E., heavy explosions also shook Dubai as air defences intercepted incoming fire over the city, where people were observing Eid al-Fitr, the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
In Iran, meanwhile, many were marking Nowruz, the Persian New Year, even as Israel said it had launched new strikes, and explosions were heard over Tehran.
Loud explosions could also be heard in Jerusalem after the Israeli army warned of incoming Iranian missiles. First responders said they treated two people around 70 years old who were lightly wounded.
In addition to steadily striking Iran, Israel has regularly hit Lebanon, targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants who have been firing rockets and drones into Israel.
As of Thursday, the U.S.-based Iran human rights group HRANA says at least 1,394 people, including 210 children have been killed. It says 1,153 millitary members were killed and 639 people who have not been classified as civilian or military have also died.
Israeli strikes in Lebanon have displaced more than one million people, according to the Lebanese government, which says more than 1,000 people have been killed.
In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missile fire. Four people were also killed in the occupied West Bank by an Iranian missile strike.
At least 13 U.S. military members have been killed.
Fears grow of global energy crisis
Iran’s attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf combined with its stranglehold on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and other critical goods are transported, has raised concerns of a global energy crisis.
Brent crude oil, the international standard, has soared during the fighting, and was around $107 US in morning trading on Friday, up more than 47 per cent since the start of the war.
Surging fuel prices come as many world leaders were already struggling to bring down high prices of food and many consumer goods. Asia is getting hit hard as most of the oil and gas exiting the Strait of Hormuz is transported there.
But the price shocks are reverberating throughout the world economy. Key raw materials — like helium used in making computer chips, and sulfur, a raw material in fertilizer — have been obstructed and could be in short supply soon, raising the prices of goods all the way down the supply chain.
Israelis take shelter at the side of a highway as a siren sounds following a missile attack from Iran on Israel, near Abu Ghush, on Thursday. (Itay Cohen/Reuters)