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Israel strike on Iranian gas field coordinated with US – report

Israel’s strike against Iran’s South Pars gas field was coordinated with and approved by the Trump administration, the American news website Axios reported, citing two senior Israeli officials.

The report says a US defence official also confirmed the claim.

The offshore gas field in the Persian Gulf, which Iran shares with Qatar, is the largest such facility in the world. Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman, Majed Al Ansari, described the targeting of the field — an extension of Qatar’s North Field — as a “dangerous and irresponsible step”.

Key events

Trump to take part in ‘dignified transfer’ of killed US military personnel

Donald Trump has travelled to Dover, Delaware, where he is set to take part in what’s known in the US military as a “dignified transfer” of military personnel killed overseas.

It will be the second of these the US president has attended since he launched his war on Iran with Israel on 28 February – the first being the 7 March return of six US soldiers who were killed by a retaliatory Iranian drone strike on a base in Kuwait. (On 9 March his vice-president JD Vance and defence secretary Pete Hegseth attended the dignified transfer ceremony for another soldier who died from injuries sustained in a 1 March strike on Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia).

Today’s event mark the return to US soil of the six service members who were killed when their KC-130 refuelling aircraft crashed in western Iraq while supporting so-called Operation Epic Fury. The US military has said the crash was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.

The number of US service members killed in the war now stands at 13.

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth follows Donald Trump to board Air Force One. Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

‘It’s not going to last forever’: Vance promises lower energy costs as oil prices keep climbing during ‘temporary’ Iran war

Shrai Popat

Speaking in Michigan today, vice-president JD Vance acknowledged the soaring price of oil, and the subsequent increase at the fuel pump for most Americans.

Today, Brent crude went up by 4.8% – meaning the cost per barrel sits at $108.42. Meanwhile, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US is $3.84 – almost 30% higher than it was a month ago, according to American Automobile Association (AAA).

“We know that people are hurting because of it, and we’re doing everything that we can to ensure that they stay low. This is a temporary war. It’s not going to last for ever,” Vance told the crowd at a manufacturing facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan. “We’re going to take care of business. We’re going to come back home. When that happens, you’re going to see energy prices come back down.”

JD Vance delivers remarks at a manufacturing facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on 18 March. Photograph: Rebecca Cook/Reuters

Saudi Arabia intercepts four missiles heading towards Riyadh and drone approaching gas facilities

In an update to our earlier post, Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry has said its air defences have successfully intercepted four ballistic missiles launched towards Riyadh.

Debris fell in various parts of the capital due to the interceptions, the ministry said in a brief statement on X. No damage or injuries were reported.

In a separate X update, the ministry said a drone “attempting to approach one of the gas facilities” in the country’s eastern region had been intercepted, with no damages reported there either.

It comes after, as we’ve been reporting, Iranian threats to attack energy infrastructure across the Gulf region in retaliation for Israeli strikes on its largest gasfield, the first targeted attacks on its fossil fuel production since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran.

Joseph Gedeon

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence who in 2019 was selling “No War With Iran” T-shirts, told the Senate intelligence committee on Wednesday that US strikes on Iran had been a strategic success.

“I’d like to remind those who are watching what I am briefing here today conveys the intelligence community’s assessment of the threats facing US citizens, our homeland and our interests,” Gabbard told the committee, “not my personal views or opinions”.

Iran’s retaliatory strikes to the US-Israeli campaign have already killed 13 American service members and wounded approximately 200 more, cost taxpayers billions of dollars and scrambled global supply chains for oil, fertilizer and aluminum. This week, when Donald Trump asked allies to help reopen the strait of Hormuz, the call wasn’t answered.

According to the annual global threat assessment report, Iran’s conventional military projection capabilities had been “largely destroyed”, Gabbard said, and Iran’s strategic position “significantly degraded”.

But, the regime appears intact, and since internal protests have been violently suppressed with thousands killed, if it survives, Iran would probably “seek to begin a years-long effort to rebuild its military, missiles and UAV forces”.

Sweden’s foreign minister on Wednesday said that Iran had executed a Swedish citizen, after Iranian authorities announced the first execution of a man convicted of spying since the start of its war against Israel and the United States.

Maria Malmer Stenergard told AFP that she had learnt late Tuesday that the sentence was likely to be carried out.

“We immediately contacted Tehran, of course, and I tried to arrange a meeting with my counterpart to ask him to immediately suspend the execution, but unfortunately, he was unavailable,” she told AFP.

She did not identify the citizen who was executed.

‘Murderers’ must pay for killing Iran’s Larijani, says Khamenei

Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said Wednesday in a written message that the killers of security chief Ali Larijani, who died in an Israeli strike, “will have to pay for it”.

“Without a doubt, the assassination of such a figure attests to his importance and to the hatred that the enemies of Islam harbour toward him,” Mojtaba Khamenei said, in a message published on his official Telegram channel on the day of Larijani’s funeral in Tehran.

“Every drop of spilled blood comes at a price, and the criminal murderers of these martyrs will soon have to pay it,” added Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to appear in public after taking office following the killing of his father, ex-supreme leader Ali Khamenei at the start of the war.

Saudi Arabia said its air defences were countering ballistic missiles on Wednesday after AFP journalists heard loud explosions echoing over the capital Riyadh as Iran’s Gulf campaign ground on.

“Air defences are dealing with a ballistic threat in Riyadh,” the Saudi defence ministry said, quoting a spokesperson in a statement on X.

Residents also received a phone alert warning that “the area is under hostile aerial threat”.

The Gulf kingdom has been regularly targeted by Iranian missile and drone attacks, including some aimed at its massive energy installations and the capital’s diplomatic quarter.

Jillian Ambrose

Iran has threatened to attack energy infrastructure across the Gulf region in retaliation for Israeli strikes on its largest gasfield, marking the first targeted attacks on its fossil fuel production since the war began.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have threatened counterstrikes on several energy facilities across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar “in the coming hours” after state media reports that missiles had targeted its gas facilities at the giant South Pars field, the largest gas reserves in the world.

The strikes on Iran’s South Pars gasfield, which it shares with Qatar, were widely reported in Israeli media to have been carried out by Israel with the consent of the US.

The attack against the heart of Iran’s gas infrastructure marks a key escalation in US and Israeli military operations. The two countries have until now largely spared Iran’s oil and gas sector and helped to keep a lid on the global oil price surge.

The oil price climbed towards $110 a barrel on Wednesday afternoon as the mounting threat to the Gulf’s oil and gas infrastructure fuelled concerns over more disruption to global supplies, amid the continuing blockade of the strait of Hormuz.

Tulsi Gabbard also cited unspecified reports that China, India and other countries have been able to move tankers through the strait of Hormuz but it was not clear how much has been crossed through the channel controlled by Iran.

“There has been some reporting of China, India and other countries being able to move their tankers through the Strait. However, it is unclear the volume or the measure of that,” Gabbard said at a Senate hearing on worldwide threats.

Asked about reports that US intelligence suggests the Iranian regime will likely remain in place “weakened but more hardline”, intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard says she will not comment on leaked “so-called intelligence”.

She tells the Senate’s intelligence committee that the regime maintains power in Iran “even though they are vastly degraded”.

Asked if the killing of the supreme leader made him a “martyr”, Gabbard added that the Iranians are using his death as a “call to arms”.

The Israeli military told AFP on Wednesday that “debris” had hit Ben Gurion Airport following Iranian missile fire, without specifying when the incident had occurred.

Israeli media reported that private planes parked at the international airport near Tel Aviv had sustained damage.

The army lifted the censorship order regarding the incident on Wednesday but did not authorise the disclosure of the date.

UAE condemns targeting of South Pars gas field, after Iran blames US and Israel

The UAE condemned the targeting on Wednesday of Iranian facilities in a gas field shared with Qatar, calling the attack attributed by Iran to the US and Israel a “dangerous escalation” in a rare rebuke.

“The United Arab Emirates affirmed that targeting energy facilities linked to the South Pars gas field in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is an extension of the North Field in the sisterly State of Qatar, constitutes a dangerous escalation,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“Targeting energy infrastructure poses a direct threat to global energy security… It also entails serious environmental repercussions and exposes civilians, maritime security, and vital civilian and industrial facilities to direct risks,” it added.

William Christou

Israel and Hezbollah are engaged in intense ground clashes in at least three strategic areas in south Lebanon as Israel continues to push on with its ground invasion of its neighbour, according to a Lebanese security source and residents of the affected towns.

Much of the fighting was concentrated around the strategic hilltop city of Khiam, with the Israel Defense Forces carrying out an air and artillery campaign against Hezbollah fighters dug into the city. Fighting escalated there after days of clashes, with a Hezbollah spokesperson acknowledging there were “heightened clashes” on the eastern and northern outskirts of the city.

As fighting continued in Khiam, Israeli troops attempted to push into border towns in the central and western sectors of south Lebanon. A resident of the Aita al-Chaab border village said fighting was intense between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters there.

A Lebanese security source said that the village was one of a number of border towns that was the site of heavy fighting as Israel tried to infiltrate southern Lebanon through a number of points along the shared border. There, they had been met with resistance by members of Hezbollah.

The fighting came as Israel amassed troops along the border, bringing four brigades and columns of tanks ahead of an expanded ground invasion of south Lebanon. The Israeli military said that already it had started a “limited ground operation,” as the political echelon discussed expanding the campaign.

The war was triggered when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel on 2 March. Israel quickly launched a military operation on Lebanon with the goal of completely eliminating Hezbollah. Hezbollah styled the war as one of survival for Lebanon, saying it was defending the country from the near-daily Israeli airstrikes on the country since the November 2024 ceasefire between the two parties. Outside Hezbollah’s constituency, the move to drag Lebanon into a war was deeply unpopular.

The latest hostilities are a contest between Israel’s airpower and Hezbollah’s guerrilla fighters. Experts said the ground fighting in Lebanon was now centred on strategic axes, in particular Khiam, which could determine Hezbollah’s ability to fight off Israel’s invasion.

Iran made no effort to rebuild uranium enrichment after its capabilities were destroyed in a June 2025 US-Israeli attack, the US intelligence chief testified Wednesday, contradicting president Donald Trump’s justifications for his ongoing war.

“As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability,” Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said in prepared testimony to the Senate.

Gabbard: Iran government ‘intact’ despite heavy blows from US-Israeli bombing

Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, said Iran’s government has suffered heavy blows in the US-Israeli military campaign but that it remains “intact”.

The US intelligence community “assesses the regime in Iran to be intact but largely degraded due to attacks on its leadership and military capabilities,” she told a US Senate hearing.

She said that if Iran’s leadership survived the war it would begin a years-long effort to rebuild its missile and drone programmes.

Israel strike on Iranian gas field coordinated with US – report

The report says a US defence official also confirmed the claim.

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