March 3 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expected the war against Iran was "not going to take years", as the conflict widened with Israel attacking Iran-backed Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and Iran hitting Gulf states that host U.S. bases.
U.S. President Donald Trump initially projected the war to last four to five weeks, but since sought to justify a broad, open-ended war on Iran.
Netanyahu rejected the idea of the conflict lasting years, like previous wars in the region.
"I said it could be quick and decisive. It may take some time, but it's not going to take years. It's not an endless war," Netanyahu said on Fox News' "Hannity" program on Monday.
As the war entered its fourth day on Tuesday, explosions shook buildings across Tel Aviv as air defenses intercepted incoming Iranian missiles.
Israel attacked the complex that houses Iran's state broadcaster IRIB in Tehran and targeted Hezbollah militants in towns across Lebanon.
Early on Tuesday, two drones, apparently from Iran, struck the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, causing minor damage and starting a fire, and at least eight more drones were intercepted before reaching the city, Saudi Arabia's Defense Ministry said.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Tuesday that its naval forces had destroyed the main command building and headquarters of a U.S. airbase in Bahrain in what it described as the 14th wave of “Operation Promise of the Truth 4”.
The IRGC said in a statement that it had launched a large-scale drone and missile attack on the base in the Sheikh Isa area early in the morning, with 20 drones and three missiles striking their intended targets.
The U.S. State Department and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday warned that “the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military” in the offensive against Iran.
Asked how long he expected the United States to be engaged in Iran, Rubio told reporters that he did not know, and that he did not rule out the possibility that Trump might deploy U.S. troops to fight a ground war in the Middle East.
"We believe the objectives we have set for this mission, the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities, both launch capibilities and manufacturing can be achieved without ground forces," Rubio said.
"Right now we are not postured for ground forces. But obviously the president has those options and he is not going to rule out anything."
The U.S. and Israeli air war against Iran began with attacks against Tehran on Saturday, which killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Retaliation from Iran and its proxy Hezbollah has dragged the wider Gulf region into the conflict, killing hundreds of civilians in Iran, Israel and Lebanon.
The U.S. military said it had struck more than 1,250 targets in Iran and destroyed 11 Iranian ships. Six U.S. service personnel have been killed so far, all in Iran's retaliatory attacks over the weekend on Kuwait.
Kuwait mistakenly shot down three American F-15E fighter jets during an Iranian attack, U.S. Central Command said. All six crew members ejected and were safely recovered.
The conflict has thrown global air transport into chaos and shut down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world's oil trade skirts the Iranian coast, sending oil prices surging.
Major Gulf hubs, including the world's busiest international airport Dubai, which usually handles over 1,000 flights a day, remained closed for a fourth day due to the conflict. That has left tens of thousands of passengers stranded as aviation faced its biggest test since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Asian airline shares extended losses on Tuesday, with carriers closely monitoring fuel price spikes and many seeing a surge in bookings as passengers switch from Middle Eastern airlines.
Global oil and gas shipping rates soared, with supertanker costs in the Middle East hitting all-time highs, after Tehran targeted ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, according to shipping data and industry sources on Tuesday.
WAR WIDENS TO LEBANON
Trump has said the U.S. faced an imminent threat from Iran that justified the war, although he gave no specifics and some U.S. lawmakers said he has shown no evidence to back that assessment.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday that the United States acted preemptively because it knew of close ally Israel's plan to strike Iran and knew Tehran would respond, putting U.S. bases at risk.
"We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties," Rubio said.
In his most extensive public comments so far on the conflict, Trump on Monday said he had ordered the attack to thwart Tehran's nuclear program and a ballistic missile program that he said was growing rapidly.
Commercial satellite imagery has captured what appears to be the first known strikes on an Iranian nuclear site since the start of the war, an independent policy institute said on Monday.
Iran has denied it is seeking nuclear weapons and said the U.S. and Israeli assault was unprovoked, occurring as Tehran and Washington were in negotiations on a nuclear accord.
Trump withdrew from a prior international agreement curbing Iran's nuclear program during his first term in 2018, three years after it was signed.
Trump's assault on Iran is the biggest U.S. foreign policy gamble in decades and a major political risk for his Republican Party in this year's midterm elections, with only one in four Americans saying they support the Iran attack, according to a weekend Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Russia, China and Turkey have condemned the war.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York, Kanishka Singh and Ismail Shakil in Washington, Enas Alashray in Cairo; Writing by Jonathan Allen and Michael Perry; Editing by Caitlin Webber and Stephen Coates)
