DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran attacked commercial ships on Wednesday and targeted Dubai International Airport, escalating a campaign of bottling up the oil-rich Persian Gulf as global energy concerns mounted and American and Israeli airstrikes pounded the Islamic Republic.
Iran's response to the surprise Israeli and U.S. bombardment 12 days ago has upended trade routes, choked supplies of fuel and fertilizer coming out of the Gulf and threatened
air traffic through one of the world's most-traveled regions. Both sides have dug in, hoping to outlast the other.
An Israeli intelligence assessment found that Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, was wounded at start of the war — on the day when his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
An Israeli intelligence official and a reservist with knowledge of the assessment spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media. They gave no details on the nature of the injuries.
The 56-year-old, whose wife was also killed in the Israeli strike, has not been seen since becoming supreme leader on Monday. Yousef Pezeshkian, the son of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, wrote on social media that he had heard Mojtaba was wounded but that friends said “he is healthy and there is no problem.”
The fallout across the Middle East has widened as Israel strikes what it says are targets connected to Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. The U.N. refugee agency said at least 759,000 people have been internally displaced in Lebanon, while more than 92,000 others have crossed into neighboring Syria.
Two Iranian drones hit near the Dubai airport, home to the long-haul carrier Emirates and the world’s busiest for international travel. Four people were wounded but flights continued, the Dubai Media Office said.
A projectile hit a Thai cargo ship off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, setting it ablaze. Authorities are searching for three missing crew members from the Mayuree Naree after 20 were rescued by the Omani navy, according to Thailand’s Marine Department.
At least 12 incidents have been confirmed involving vessels in and around the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all traded oil passes, since the war began, according to two global trackers. The International Maritime Organization says at least seven mariners have been killed.
Iran has effectively stopped cargo traffic through the narrow strait. It has also targeted oil fields and refineries in Gulf Arab nations, aiming at generating enough global economic pain to pressure the United States and Israel to end their strikes.
The United States has pledged to keep the strait open and has carried out intense airstrikes targeting Iran's navy and the port city of Bandar Abbas.
The U.S. military said Tuesday it had destroyed 16 Iranian minelayers near the strait, though U.S. President Donald Trump said in social media posts that there were no reports yet of Iran mining the passage.
Some tankers, believed linked to Iran, are continuing to get through the strait, making so-called “dark” transits -- meaning they aren’t turning on trackers that show where they are. Vessels carrying sanctioned Iranian crude often turn off their trackers.
The commodity-tracking firm Kpler said Iran has restarted crude exports through its Jask oil terminal on the Gulf of Oman. A tanker loaded roughly 2 million barrels at Jask on March 7, it said.
Oil prices remained well below Monday’s peaks but the price of Brent crude, the international standard, was still up some 20% Wednesday from when the war began. Consumers around the world are already feeling the pain at the pump.
The International Energy Agency agreed Wednesday to release the largest volume of emergency oil reserves in its history, in a bid to counter the war’s impact on energy markets.
The Paris-based organization said it will make 400 million barrels of oil available from its member countries’ emergency reserves, more than twice the amount they released four years ago in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Israeli strikes set a building ablaze in central Beirut, engulfing the top two floors. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said four people were wounded.
Other Israeli strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon killed 14 people, and a Red Cross worker also died Wednesday of wounds sustained Monday, when his team was hit by an Israeli strike while they were rescuing people from an earlier attack.
Lebanon's Health Ministry said Wednesday that 570 people have been killed in the country since the latest fighting began.
Iranian authorities say more than 1,300 people have been killed there, and Israel has reported 12 people dead. The U.S. has lost seven soldiers while another eight have suffered severe injuries.
Iran’s joint military command said it would start targeting banks and financial institutions in the Middle East. That would put at risk particularly Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, which is home to many international financial institutions, as well as Saudi Arabia and the island kingdom of Bahrain.
The threat came after a Tehran location of Bank Sepah, a state-owned financial institution sanctioned by the U.S. over funding its armed forces, came under attack Wednesday, killing staffers there, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
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Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel and Rising from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo, Sally Abou AIJoud in Beirut, Giovanna Dell’Orto in Miami, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Cara Anna in Lowville, New York, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Samuel Petrequin in Paris contributed to this story.
