Iranian strikes on Friday hit a power and water desalination plant in Kuwait, damaging one of the key sources of drinking water in the small desert nation.
It's the latest attack on essential infrastructure across the Middle East that have exposed extreme vulnerabilities in one of the world’s driest regions, which relies almost exclusively on technology to produce freshwater that sustains cities, hotels, industry and some agriculture.
Kuwaiti authorities
said the strikes damaged a large number of power generation units and sparked a fire. They added that a fire has been contained, and that they activated emergency contingency plans.
In Kuwait, about 90% of drinking water comes from desalination, along with roughly 86% in Oman and about 70% in Saudi Arabia. The process removes salt from seawater, most commonly by pushing it through ultrafine membranes in a process known as reverse osmosis.
Hundreds of desalination plants sit along the Persian Gulf coast, putting systems that supply water to millions within range of Iranian missile or drone strikes. Without them, major cities could not sustain their current populations.
For people living outside the Middle East, the main concern of the Iran war has been the impact on energy prices. Fighting and attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz have upended world markets and pushed oil prices to record highs.
But the infrastructure that keeps Gulf cities supplied with drinking water are equally vulnerable.
Throughout the past few months, Iran has struck close to several desalination plants in the Gulf. Kuwait previously reported damage at the Doha West desalination plant early in the war, which resulted from debris from intercepted drones or attacks on the nearby port.
Iran accused the U.S. of striking Iranian desalination plants on Qeshm Island on March 8, cutting off water supplies for 30 villages, though Washington did not acknowledged the strike.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have also targeted Saudi desalination facilities amid regional tensions in the past.
Many Gulf desalination plants are physically integrated with power stations as co‑generation facilities, meaning attacks on electrical infrastructure could also hinder water production. Desalination plants have multiple stages — intake systems, treatment facilities, energy supplies — and damage to any part of that chain can interrupt production.
Gulf governments and U.S. officials have long recognized the risks these systems pose for regional stability: if major desalination plants were knocked offline, some cities could lose most of their drinking water within days.
A 2010 CIA analysis warned attacks on desalination facilities could trigger national crises in several Gulf states, and prolonged outages could last months if critical equipment were destroyed.
More than 90% of the Gulf’s desalinated water comes from just 56 plants, the report stated, and “each of these critical plants is extremely vulnerable to sabotage or military action.”
The desalination plants are also vulnerable to climate change, including storm surges and extreme rainfall that can overwhelm infrastructure, as warming oceans increase the likelihood and intensity of cyclones in the Arabian Sea. __
Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman contributed from Tel Aviv, Israel.
