Maayan Lubell, Alexander Cornwell and Idrees Ali
Updated ,first published
Dubai: Iran has warned it will strike electrical plants across the Middle East if US President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to bomb power stations in the Islamic Republic, and threatened to mine the “entire Persian Gulf”.
The threat by Tehran puts at risk both electrical supplies and water in the Gulf Arab states, particularly as the desert nations commingle their power stations with desalination plants crucial for supplying drinking water.
Following the threat, Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency published a list of such facilities, including the United Arab Emirates’ nuclear power plant. Over the weekend, Iran launched missiles targeting Dimona in Israel, near a facility key to its long-suspected atomic weapons program. The Israeli facility wasn’t damaged in the barrage.
As concerns grow in Tehran about the potential arrival of US Marines in the region, Iran’s Defence Council warned against the idea of an invasion.
“Any attempt by the enemy to target Iran’s coasts or islands will, naturally and in accordance with established military practice, lead to the mining of all access routes … in the Persian Gulf and along the coasts,” it said in a statement.
The US has been trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, to energy shipments. The Marines could come ashore to seize either islands or territory in Iran to support that mission. Israel has also suggested that a ground operation could take part in the war.
Trump has given a 48-hour deadline, due to expire late on Monday (Washington time), for Tehran to open the strategic waterway to all ships, saying that otherwise the United States would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants.
The ultimatum further raises the stakes of the ongoing war with Iran that has disrupted global energy supplies, sending natural gas and gasoline prices soaring.
“No country will be immune to the effects of this crisis if it continues to go in this direction,” said Fatih Birol, the head of the Paris-based International Energy Agency.
He told Australia’s National Press Club in Canberra on Monday that the crisis in the Middle East has had a worse impact on energy markets than the two oil shocks of the 1970s and the Russia-Ukraine war combined.
Jorge Moreira da Silva, a senior United Nations official, said the world has already seen a ripple effect, including “exponential price hikes in oil, fuel and gas,” having a far reaching impact on millions, primarily in Asian and African developing countries.
“There is no military solution,” he said.
Israel launched new attacks Monday on the Iranian capital, saying it had “begun a wide-scale wave of strikes” on infrastructure targets in Tehran without immediately elaborating.
United States Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper claimed in an interview that Iran was launching missiles and drones from populated areas, and suggested those areas would be targeted.
“You need to stay inside for right now,” Cooper told Iranian civilians in the interview with the Farsi-language satellite network Iran International aired early on Monday.
“There will be a clear signal at some point, as the president has indicated, for you to be able to come out.”
Air defences in the United Arab Emirates intercepted a ballistic missile near the Al Dhafra Air Base in Abu Dhabi, and one person on the ground was injured when hit with shrapnel.
Warning sirens sounded in Bahrain and Kuwait, while Saudi Arabia’s Defence Ministry said it had intercepted a missile targeting Riyadh, and had destroyed drones over the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province.
Oil prices up more than 50 per cent
Oil prices remained stubbornly high in early trading, with the price of Brent crude, the international standard, at around $US112 a barrel, up nearly 55 per cent since Israel and the US started the war on February 28 by attacking Iran.
The war has also caused wild fluctuations in global stock markets as traders grow increasingly concerned about a world energy crisis and other issues.
In addition to targeting Israel and American bases, Iran has been hitting the energy infrastructure of its Gulf Arab neighbours.
It also has a tight grip on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which leads from the Persian Gulf towards the open ocean and through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped, along with other important commodities.
A trickle of ships has been getting through the strait and Iran insists it remains open – just not to the US, Israel or their allies.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said on Monday that if the US went after its power plants, Iran would respond by hitting power plants in all areas that supplied electricity to American bases, “as well as the economic, industrial and energy infrastructures in which Americans have shares”.
“Do not doubt that we will do this,” the Guard said in a statement read on Iranian state television.
The Fars news agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guard, published a list of such sites in what appeared to be a veiled threat, including desalination plants as well as the UAE’s Barakah nuclear power plant, which has four reactors out in the western deserts of the country near its border with Saudi Arabia. The judiciary’s Mizan news agency also published the list.
Iran has also said it will completely close the strait if Trump follows through with the threat.
Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf also said Iran would then consider vital infrastructure across the region – including energy and desalination facilities critical for drinking water in Gulf nations – legitimate targets.
Electricity makes Gulf cities habitable, in part by powering the desalination plants that produce 100 per cent of the water consumed in Bahrain and Qatar. Such plants use seawater to meet more than 80 per cent of drinking water needs in the UAE, and 50 per cent of the water supply in Saudi Arabia.
Campaign against Iran ‘ahead or on plan’
In his first one-on-one interview since the war started, Cooper said the campaign against Iran was “ahead or on plan” and that the US and Israel were targeting infrastructure and manufacturing facilities to destroy Iran’s capabilities to rebuild its military.
“It’s not just about the threat today,” he said. “We’re eliminating the threat of the future, both in terms of the drones, the missiles as well as the navy.”
He suggested Iran could bring a quick end to the war if it stopped firing back, though he did not say whether that would prompt Israel and the US to relent before all infrastructure targets had been destroyed.
“They could stop this war right now, absolutely, if they chose to do so,” he said of Iran. “They need to stop putting the wonderful Iranian people at risk by firing missiles and drones from inside populated areas … They need to stop immediately attacking civilians throughout the Middle East region.”
Iran’s death toll in the war has surpassed 1500, its health ministry has said. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian strikes. More than a dozen civilians in the occupied West Bank and Gulf Arab states have been killed in strikes.
In Lebanon, authorities say Israeli strikes targeting Iran-linked militia Hezbollah have killed more than 1000 people and displaced more than 1 million. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel.
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