Several explosions heard on key island but ‘no oil infrastructure damaged’
Main points
- US president Donald Trump has said the US will strike Iran “very hard over the next week”
- He said the US had “obliterated” military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island, in a social media post late last night
- The US state department is offering rewards of up to $10 million to anyone with information on Iran’s new supreme leader and other senior officials
- US military has elevated its investigation into the strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed 168 schoolchildren
- The US military has confirmed that all six crew members on board a refuelling plane that went down in western Iraq have died
Key Reads
- How Micheál Martin should handle Trump for St Patrick’s Day: ‘Lie back and think of Ireland’
- Bellicose, vengeful, unapologetic: Why Pete Hegseth sees moral purpose in war as weakness
- Sally Hayden: ‘The children are afraid’: Beirut’s southern suburbs reel under relentless air strikes
India seeks to open the Strait of Hormuz for its ships
India has sought safe passage for 22 of its vessels stranded west of the Strait of Hormuz, a foreign affairs ministry spokesperson said on Saturday, after Iran allowed a few Indian ships to sail through, in a rare exception to the blockade.
Randhir Jaiswal told a press conference that India has stayed in touch with all major parties in the Middle East – including Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Iran, the US and Israel – to convey its priorities, particularly on energy security.
Tehran’s Ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, confirmed that Iran has allowed some Indian vessels to sail through the Strait of Hormuz. He was speaking on broadcaster India Today’s conclave in New Delhi.
Since the United States and Israel launched a bombing campaign on Iran, Tehran has largely halted traffic through the strait, which runs past its coast and through which around 20% of global oil and seaborne liquefied natural gas is supplied. The blockade has triggered India’s worst gas crisis in decades with the government cutting supplies for industries to shield households from any shortage of cooking gas – Reuters
President Donald Trump said military facilities on the Persian Gulf Kharg Island had been “obliterated,” adding that he chose not to hit oil infrastructure “for reasons of decency.” He threatened to do just that should Iran “do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iran reacted by warning it will target American-linked oil and energy facilities in the Middle East if its own petroleum infrastructure is attacked. Iranian media said all oil-industry workers on the island, which sits about 25 kilometers (16 miles) off the mainland, are safe and unharmed.
The strike on is likely to raise fears of more oil and natural gas supply disruptions in the region. Brent crude closed above $100 a barrel on Friday and is at its highest level in almost four years.
“All oil, economic, and energy facilities belonging to oil companies in the region that are partly owned by the United States or that cooperate with the United States will be immediately destroyed and reduced to ashes” if Iran’s energy and economic assets are hit, the country’s Fars News Agency reported, citing the central military command – Bloomberg
Sinn Féin’s finance spokesperson, Glasgow born Pearse Doherty has confirmed that he will bring a motion before the Dáil next week demanding urgent action to tackle the soaring cost of home heating oil, petrol and diesel.
The Private Members’ motion, which will be debated on Wednesday, calls on the Government to immediately intervene to reduce fuel prices and scrap planned tax increases on home heating oil.
“Workers and families have been struggling through an unrelenting cost of living crisis and the rapid rise in the cost of petrol, diesel and home heating oil is making an already difficult situation far worse,” the Donegal TD said.
“Households are under enormous pressure and yet Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael continue to sit on their hands while costs spiral.”
Doherty said the Sinn Féin motion will highlight the growing hardship being experienced across the State.
“Record numbers of households are already struggling to pay their energy bills, with hundreds of thousands in arrears and many more on the brink,” he added.
“The number of people at risk of poverty has also increased.”
The Sinn Féin motion calls on the Government to scrap planned tax increases on home heating oil, due to take effect on May 1st, and to reduce the cost of petrol, diesel and home heating oil by implementing the party’s Mineral Oil Tax (Emergency Cost of Living Reduction) Bill 2026.
Some oil loading operations suspend in Fujairah following drone attack
Some oil-loading operations have been suspended in the United Arab Emirates’ Fujairah emirate, a major bunkering hub and crude export terminal, after a drone attack and fire on Saturday, industry and trade sources have said.
The suspension comes hours after the US attacked military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island oil export terminal and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded by saying that US interests in the UAE – including ports, docks and military locations – were legitimate targets.
Fujairah, outside the Strait of Hormuz, is the outlet for about one million barrels per day of the UAE’s Murban crude oil – a volume equal to about one per cent of world demand.
The fire in Fujairah occurred after debris fell during the interception of a drone, but no injuries were reported, the emirate’s media office said.
Civil defence forces are handling the incident to contain the fire, it added.
Authorities did not provide any information about the suspension of operations.
Abu Dhabi state oil giant ADNOC, which operates in the emirate, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US forces executed a large-scale precision strike on Kharg Island in Iran on Friday night, the US Central Command said on Saturday.
“US Forces successfully struck more than 90 Iranian military targets,” it said.
Iran has allowed some Indian vessels through Strait of Hormuz, says ambassador
Iran has allowed some Indian vessels to sail through the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran’s ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, said on Saturday, confirming a rare exception to the blockade that has disrupted global energy supplies.
Fathali did not confirm the number of vessels that have been provided safe passage. He was speaking at broadcaster India Today’s conclave in New Delhi.
Since the United States and Israel launched a bombing campaign on Iran, Tehran has largely halted traffic through the strait, which runs past its coast and through which around 20 per cent of global oil and seaborne liquefied natural gas is supplied.
The US struck military sites on Kharg Island, from which Iran exports almost all its oil, for the first time overnight.
US president Donald Trump said military facilities on the Gulf island had been “obliterated,” adding that he chose not to hit oil infrastructure “for reasons of decency”.
He threatened to do just that should Iran “do anything to interfere with the free and safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz”.
Iran reacted on Saturday morning by warning it will target American-linked oil and energy facilities in the Middle East if its own petroleum infrastructure is attacked. Iranian media said all oil-industry workers on the island, which sits about 25km off the mainland, are safe and unharmed.
“All oil, economic, and energy facilities belonging to oil companies in the region that are partly owned by the United States or that co-operate with the United States will be immediately destroyed and reduced to ashes” if Iran’s energy and economic assets are hit, the country’s Fars News Agency reported, citing the central military command.
The outlet said more than 15 explosions shook Kharg Island, with the targets including air-defence systems, a naval base, an airport control tower and a helicopter hangar. It didn’t specify the scale of the damage.
In the United Arab Emirates, some oil operations at Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman were suspended after a drone attack and fire on Saturday morning. Dubai authorities said debris from an interception hit the facade of a building in a central part of the city. “No fire occurred and no injuries were reported,” the Dubai Media Office said.
Iranian media reported more attacks on Tehran early Saturday, while Iran’s military said it again targeted Israel overnight and a base near Abu Dhabi that hosts US troops.
British government looking to provide ‘targeted’ support to offset impact of surging energy costs
The British government is looking to provide “targeted” support for poorer households to offset the impact of surging energy costs due to the conflict in the Middle East, finance minister Rachel Reeves has said.
Reeves told the Times newspaper the government was looking at options to help those vulnerable to sharp rises in energy prices, especially those who relied on heating oil, but she ruled out universal help for all households, saying it would be unaffordable.
The Labour government, trailing in the polls to the populist Reform UK party, has come under pressure from opponents to cap regulated household energy tariffs – due for review in late May – and to scrap a planned rise in vehicle fuel duty in September.
“I have found the money and we’ve worked through with MPs (lawmakers) and others a response for people who are not protected by the energy price cap. We’re giving greater support to those who really need it,” she said of the plan to help households who rely on heating oil.
More than a million households in Britain use oil for heating, particularly in rural areas where connection to the gas grid is not available. The highest concentration is in Northern Ireland, where almost half of households rely solely on the fuel.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that US interests in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), including ports, docks and military locations, are legitimate targets after US forces attacked Iranian islands, Iranian state media reported.
In its statement, IRGC urged residents in UAE to evacuate ports, docks and US military shelters to avoid civilian casualties.
Iran is ‘totally defeated and wants a deal’, claims Trump
US president Donald Trump has claimed Iran is “totally defeated and wants a deal”.
In a post on Truthsocial over recent hours, Trump said: “The Fake News Media hates to report how well the United States Military has done against Iran, which is totally defeated and wants a deal – But not a deal that I would accept! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT.”
The US embassy in the Iraqi capital Baghdad was hit in a missiles attack, Iraqi security sources have told Reuters on Saturday.
The attack caused smoke to rise from the embassy’s building, the sources said, without providing details on the damage.
Some oil -loading operations in the port of UAE’s Fujairah, outside the Strait of Hormuz, have been suspended after a drone attack and fire on Saturday morning, Bloomberg News has reported.
Elsewhere, explosions rocked Iraq’s capital Baghdad on Saturday after two strikes targeted the powerful Iran-backed group Kataeb Hizbullah, killing two members including a “key figure”, security sources told AFP.
In Lebanon, at least 12 medical personnel were killed in an Israeli strike on a healthcare centre in the town of Borj Qalaouiya in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese state news agency reported, citing the health ministry.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 100 children in Lebanon, according to the latest data from the Lebanese health ministry. A total of 773 people have been killed since Israel’s first strikes on the country on March 2nd, with a further 1,933 people wounded, the ministry said in its daily report.
It said 103 children had now been killed in the strikes, and a further 326 children have been wounded. – Guardian
Kharg Island is a key hub for oil exports
Kharg Island is the hub for 90 per cent of Iran’s oil exports and has long been seen as a key vulnerability that would provoke a severe response by Tehran if attacked.
Iran, which ramped up oil output in the run-up to the February 28th launch of the war by Israel and the US, has continued to ship oil at a rate of 1.1 million to 1.5 million barrels per day, TankerTracker.com and Kpler data show.
Kharg sits 26km (16 miles) from Iran’s coast, more than 480km northwest of the Strait of Hormuz, in waters deep enough to enable the docking of tankers that are too large to approach the mainland’s shallow coastal waters.
Kharg has storage capacity of roughly 30 million barrels, and held about 18 million barrels of crude as of early March, according to a JP Morgan report citing Kpler data.
The last time the island came under significant fire was during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. The Iraqi military, under Saddam Hussein, conducted heavy bombing raids on the island’s oil infrastructure at the time, causing extensive damage. But Iran was able to rebuild the facilities. – Agencies
The military’s Al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said in a statement cited by Iranian media that oil and energy infrastructure belonging to firms that co-operated with the United States would “immediately be destroyed and turned into a pile of ashes” if Iran’s energy facilities were attacked.
President Donald Trump said US forces had “obliterated” military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island – hours after the American military said it has ordered 2,500 Marines and an amphibious assault ship to the Middle East.
Kharg Island is the primary terminal that handles Iran’s oil exports, and Trump warned that the island’s oil infrastructure could be next.
Announcing the action in a social media post, the US president said: “Moments ago, at my direction, the United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island.
“For reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision.”
It said the strikes targeted an air defence facility, a naval base, the airport control tower and an offshore oil company’s helicopter hangar, adding no oil infrastructure was damaged in the attack. – Associated Press