Oil Market Impacted as Iran Closes Strait of Hormuz, Vows to Attack Errant Ships

• Trump to Iran: ‘Big wave’ yet to come, attacks escalate  

•Dubai, others announce limited flight resumption  

•Khamenei’s wife dies from injuries 

•Gulf states consider military response, US death toll hits 6 

•US fighter jets accidentally shot down by Kuwait

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards said yesterday that the Strait of Hormuz has been closed, maintaining that it will fire on any ship trying to pass  through the area,

It was Iran’s most explicit warning since telling  ships it was closing the export route at the weekend, a move that threatens to choke a fifth of global oil flows and send crude prices sharply higher.

“The strait (of Hormuz) is closed. If anyone tries to pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guards and the regular navy will set those ships ablaze,” Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the Guards commander-in-chief, said in remarks carried by state media.

The strait is the world’s most vital oil export route, which connects the biggest Gulf oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.

The closure was triggered by US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 seeking to topple its leaders, with US President Donald Trump offering Iranians help in ousting the ruling clerics, a Reuters report said.

In response, Iran fired several barrages of missiles at its Gulf neighbours hosting US military bases such as Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. Tehran also fired missiles at the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Oman.

With the closure, Tehran made good on years of threats to block the narrow waterway in retaliation for any attack on the Islamic Republic. About 20 per cent of the world’s daily oil consumption passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which is about 33 kilometers (21 miles) wide at its narrowest point.

Oil markets have focused on tensions between Tehran and its old foes, the US and Israel, fearing that a full-blown conflict would disrupt supplies and destabilise the region.

The move also comes after global shipping had already experienced disruptions linked to drone and missile attacks carried out by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi militants. The group has targeted vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since the Gaza war broke out in 2023.

In the aftermath, oil and gas prices have surged as Iran continues to launch strikes across the Middle East in response to ongoing attacks by the US and Israel. Natural gas prices spiked on Monday after QatarEnergy, one of the world’s biggest exporters, halted production following “military attacks” on its facilities.

Oil prices also jumped, with the global benchmark Brent crude briefly hitting $82 a barrel on Monday, after at least three ships were attacked near the Strait of Hormuz.

Besides, QatarEnergy, which is owned by the state, said that it had suspended producing liquefied natural gas (LNG) after the country’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said a drone launched from Iran targeted a facility in Ras Laffan Industrial City. Qatar’s MoD also said a drone went after a water tank belonging to a power plant in Mesaieed, south of the capital Doha.

In neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Aramco temporarily shut its major oil refinery at Ras Tanura on the coast after being hit by a drone. International shipping has almost come to a standstill at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, with analysts warning that a prolonged conflict could push energy prices even higher.

In Nigeria, the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Refinery has already raised the gantry price of petrol, while on the other hand the skyrocketing price of crude oil is good for the 2026 budget as well for the general economy.

Trump to Iran: ‘Big Wave’ Yet to Come

President Donald Trump has said that the US military is “knocking the crap” out of Iran, but stated that the “big wave” is yet to come, as the US/Israeli versus Iran war entered its third day yesterday.

Besides, Trump addressed a wide range of topics in an interview with CNN, including the expected length of the conflict, his surprise at Iran’s widespread retaliation and the country’s expected succession plan.

“We’re knocking the crap out of them. I think it’s going very well. It’s very powerful. We’ve got the greatest military in the world and we’re using it. I don’t want to see it (the war) go on too long. I always thought it would be four weeks. And we’re a little ahead of schedule.

“But right now we want everyone to stay inside. It’s not safe out there. And it’s about to get even less safe, the president said. We haven’t even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon,” he told CNN.

So far, the president said, “the biggest surprise” has been Iran’s attacks against Arab countries in the region: Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. “We were surprised,” Trump said. “We told them, ‘We’ve got this,’ and now they want to fight. And they’re aggressively fighting. They were going to be very little involved and now they insist on being involved,” he added.

Trump pointed to the Iranian nuclear threat as having been a major issue in the region for some time. “You have to understand, they were living under that dark cloud for years. That’s why you could never have peace,” he said.

On who might emerge to lead Iran, Trump said, “We don’t know who the leadership is. We don’t know who they’ll pick. Maybe they’ll get lucky and get someone who knows what they’re doing.” The Iranians, he said, lost “a lot in terms of leadership” because of the initial strikes.

“Forty-nine people,” Trump said. “It was an amazing strike.” “They got a little bit arrogant” by meeting all in one place, he added. “They thought they were undetectable. They weren’t undetectable. We were shocked by it.” Trump said it was unclear who was now leading the country.

“They don’t even know who’s leading them now,” Trump said. “We went down 49” Iranian leaders. Those were the leaders, and some of them were being considered,” Trump said. But with more than four dozen killed, “we don’t know who’s leading the country now. They don’t know who’s leading. It’s a little like the unemployment line,” he added.

The president said that his team tried to negotiate with the Iranians but “we couldn’t make a deal with these people.” Every new offer, he said, was met with a walk-back of previous offers.

“The Iranians wouldn’t agree to end their enrichment of uranium, ” Trump said. “They had all that enriched stuff. They looked at redoing it there, but it was in such bad shape, the mountain had basically collapsed,” Trump said.

Trump said he asked his team for a list of all the Iranian or Iranian-backed attacks against the US and US allies and interests. “Over the last 47 years. I said, ‘give me all of the attacks.’ If I told you all of them I’d still be talking,” he said.

The latest military operation is part of a long-term campaign to eliminate the Iranian threat, Trump said. “We took out Soleimani last time,” referring to the January 3, 2020, US drone strike against Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani. “He was an unbelievably violent, vicious general,” he added.

Separately, Trump said the war was the “last best chance” of addressing the threat posed by Iran’s ballistic missiles and nuclear programme.   He told the New York Post he will not rule out sending ground troops into Iran if necessary. In the same vein, the US military death toll climbed to six.

Dubai, Others Announce Limited Flight Resumption

In a similar development, the government of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, said Monday that both of its major airports would reopen later in the day for “limited” flights, several days after both facilities were shuttered due to the US-Israeli attacks on Iran and Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone fire.

“Dubai Airports announces a limited resumption of flights from Dubai International Airport (DXB) and Dubai World Central – Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) starting this evening,” the Dubai government said on its official X account.

Dubai International Airport is the world’s busiest commercial aviation hub by passenger volume, with some 95.2 million people transiting through the airport last year, according to Dubai Airports.

“Dubai Airports urged passengers not to go to the airport unless they have been contacted by the relevant airline to confirm their flight departure time,” the administration noted.

Much of the airspace and many airports in the Middle East have remained closed since Saturday, leaving tens of thousands of people stranded in the region and some European nations contemplating evacuation operations.

Several other international airlines cautiously resumed a small number of flights from the United Arab Emirates on Monday, providing the first opportunity for travelers stranded by sweeping airspace closures to leave the country after the US and Israel bombarded Iran, and Iran struck back at targets across the Middle East.

Long-haul carriers Etihad Airways and Emirates, based in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, along with budget carrier FlyDubai, said they would operate select flights from the country, where air traffic was suspended Saturday and defense systems have intercepted Iranian missiles and drones.

At least 16 Etihad flights left Abu Dhabi to evacuate stranded passengers during a three-hour window Monday, according to tracking service Flightradar24, heading to destinations including Islamabad, Paris, Amsterdam, Mumbai, Moscow and London. The airline’s website, however, said all of its regularly scheduled commercial flights remained suspended until Wednesday afternoon.

Dubai International Airport, Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport and Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar, are key hubs for travel between Europe, Africa and Asia. All three were all directly affected by Iranian strikes over the weekend.

At least 11,000 flights into, out of and within the Middle East have been canceled since Saturday, impacting more than 1 million passengers, according to an analysis by aviation analytics firm Cirium.

Iran Death Toll Reaches 555

At least 555 people have been killed in US-Israeli strikes across Iran, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said yesterday, amid another wave of intensive attacks and Iranian counterstrikes on Israel and United States assets in the Middle East region.

About 35 people were killed on Monday morning in southern Iran’s Fars province, according to the Mehr news agency. The outlet also reported more than 20 people killed in an attack on Niloofar Square in Tehran.

Besides, two people were killed in the central city of Sanandaj as several residential buildings next to the city’s police station were destroyed. US and Israeli forces dropped six missiles on different parts of the city, including densely populated neighbourhoods, Iranian media said.

Videos verified by Al Jazeera showed huge clouds of smoke billowing behind buildings near the international airport in the central Iranian city of Kermanshah. Iranian authorities reported that the death toll from an Israeli attack on a girls’ school in Minab on Saturday rose to 180.

Hossein Kermanpour, the head of public relations at Iran’s Ministry of Health, added that the “same type” of missile was used to attack the Gandhi Hospital in Tehran on Sunday. The hospital was badly damaged, and patients were evacuated.

The Israeli military on Monday said Iran had launched more missiles and that air defences were operating to intercept the projectiles. It called on residents to take shelter and remain in protected spaces until informed.

White House: 49 Senior Regime Leaders Killed

The operation against Iran has killed 49 of “the most senior Iranian regime leaders,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said yesterday. Trump also gave that figure earlier Monday to the New York post, saying, “We’re right on schedule, way ahead of schedule in terms of [Iranian] leadership — 49 killed — and that was, you know, going to take, we figured at least four weeks, and we did it in one day.”

Leavitt outlined objectives of the campaign against Iran, which she said include: Destroying Iran’s missiles and Navy; stopping the regime from making and using IEDs and roadside bombs; and guaranteeing that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.

In a post on X, she said the regime “was fully committed to rebuilding their nuclear programme, and they refused to make a deal, despite months of extensive talks and good faith efforts by President Trump’s top negotiators.

Red Cross: Middle East Hostilities Putting Civilians in Danger

The spiralling war in the Middle East is putting civilians in grave danger, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross warned, saying a broad conflict would outstrip any ability to help. “Widening hostilities across the Middle East are putting civilian lives in grave danger,” said ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric.

“The scale of major military operations flaring across the Middle East risks embroiling the region — and beyond — into another large-scale armed conflict that will overwhelm any humanitarian response.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Wife Dies from Injuries

Also, the wife of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed himself in the initial US-Israeli strikes on Tehran Saturday, has also died of her injuries, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said Monday. Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, 79, died of her wounds on Monday, three days after the strike that killed her husband and several senior Iranian commanders, Tasnim reported.

Gulf States Consider Military Response

The Gulf Cooperation Council convened via video-link, with the members’ foreign ministers saying afterwards that they would “take all necessary measures to defend their security and stability … including the option of responding to the aggression.” Jordan, which has also been intercepting missiles and drones over the past two days, said five people have been injured and a number of homes damaged across the kingdom since the start of Iran’s reprisals.

Across the Gulf, civilian infrastructure has been hit: from airports and seaports to residential buildings and hotels.

“The Gulf countries right now are really on the front lines of this brutal war,” security analyst Anna Jacobs told AFP on Monday. “If Iran continues to hit these countries and escalates even more, it will be very difficult for them to just sit and do nothing.”

Early Sunday, drones struck the airport in Bahrain’s capital Manama, causing minor damage, authorities said. The U.S. Embassy in Manama urged citizens to steer clear of hotels in the city, meanwhile, warning they could become potential targets after the Crowne Plaza was hit.

On Saturday, the Iranian attacks sparked fires at landmarks including The Palm seafront development and Burj Al Arab hotel in the UAE’s Dubai.

IAEA Chief Says No Sign Iran Nuclear Sites Hit Yet

The head of the United Nations’s nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, said yesterday that his agency had “no indication” that any of Iran’s nuclear installations had been damaged by the ongoing Israeli-U.S. strikes on the country.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi warned, however, that with missiles still flying a “possible radiological release with serious consequences” could not be ruled out, calling the situation in the Middle East “very concerning” and urging the “utmost restraint” by all parties.

“I reiterate my call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid further escalation,” Grossi said in his statement, released by the IAEA, as he opened the closed-door session.

“Iran and many other countries in the region that have been subjected to military attacks have operational nuclear power plants and nuclear research reactors, as well as associated fuel storage sites, increasing the threat to nuclear safety,” he said. “Let me underline that the situation today is very concerning. We cannot rule out a possible radiological release with serious consequences, including the necessity to evacuate areas as large or larger than major cities.”

He said the IAEA was trying to contact the Iranian nuclear regulatory authorities, “with no response so far.”

The IAEA reported just days ago that, despite US strikes in June that President Trump said “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, the country still has a stockpile of around 972 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity — a short technical step away from the level required for nuclear weapons.

Grossi said on February 19 that “most of the material that Iran had accumulated up until June of last year, despite the [U.S.] bombings and the attacks, is still there, in large quantities, where it was at the time of the strikes. … Some of it may be less accessible, but the material is still there.” He called Monday for diplomatic negotiations to resume “as quickly as possible,” CBS News reported.

War Dramatically Expands Across Middle East

The war in the Middle East triggered by the joint US and Israeli attack on Iran expanded dramatically yesterday, with casualties and destruction reported across at least nine countries, including major strikes on Tehran.

Israeli and US warplanes launched a fresh wave of strikes across Iran, where the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) said more than 500 people had been killed since the conflict began. Israel also launched an intense wave of attacks into Lebanon after Hezbollah struck at northern Israel in retaliation for the Israeli strike on Saturday that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iranian attacks were reported on oil infrastructure and other targets across a 1,200-mile swathe of the region – with damage inflicted from the Gulf of Oman, where a bomb-carrying drone boat exploded against an oil tanker, to Cyprus, targeting a British military base.

Black smoke rose above the area around the US embassy in Kuwait, where there was a heavy presence of security, ambulances and fire trucks. There were loud blasts in Dubai and Samha in the United Arab Emirates, and in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Saudi Arabia shut its biggest refinery after drone strikes caused a fire there, one of a number of oil installations that became targets, the Guardian UK reported.

In the first strike to reach US allies in Europe, a drone hit Britain’s Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus overnight. Britain and Cyprus said the damage was limited and there were no casualties. The effort to oust Iran’s leadership is the biggest US foreign policy gamble in decades.

The US president, Trump, repeated his calls for Iranians to rise up and overthrow their leaders, and said the air campaign could last weeks.

In the first public remarks by an administration official since the war began on Saturday, the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said the US goals were to destroy Iran’s navy, its ballistic missiles production, and its potential to produce a nuclear weapon. He repeatedly said the US would not get bogged down in the conflict, saying that the US operation was not a “democracy-building exercise” and that “this is not Iraq. This is not endless.”

The US military said B-2 stealth bombers struck Iran’s ballistic missile facilities with 2,000-pound bombs. Trump said 10 Iranian warships had been sunk and that the Iranian navy’s headquarters had been “largely destroyed”.

Three US Fighter Jets Accidentally Shot Down by Kuwait

Three US fighter jets crashed in Kuwait on Monday due to an “apparent friendly fire incident,” the US military said in a statement. Kuwaiti air defenses accidentally shot the F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets down late Sunday evening ET time. All six crew members ejected safely, US Central Command said.

The cause of the incident is under investigation, according to CENTCOM. The jets were flying in support of the military operation against Iran, dubbed Operation Epic Fury.

Kuwait’s defense ministry had said in the early hours of Monday morning that “several” US fighter jets crashed but did not specify exactly how many or what had caused it. The fighter jets each cost tens of millions of dollars.

The statement comes after videos geolocated by CNN showed a fighter jet crashing in Kuwait and a pilot parachuting to the ground. CNN reached out to the White House for comment.

“During active combat—that included attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones — the U.S. Air Force fighter jets were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses,” the CENTCOM statement said.

“All six aircrew ejected safely, have been safely recovered, and are in stable condition. Kuwait has acknowledged this incident, and we are grateful for the efforts of the Kuwaiti defense forces and their support in this ongoing operation.”

“Relevant authorities immediately initiated search-and-rescue operations,” Kuwait’s defense ministry spokesperson Col. Said Al-Atwan said in the statement. “The crews were evacuated from the crash sites and transferred to hospital to assess their condition and provide necessary medical care,” he said. The crew members are in a “stable” condition, the ministry added.