Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Oil price continues to rise amid Middle East crisis but stock markets rebound across Asia

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Reports of attack on US registered tanker in Gulf lifts crude by 3% to $84 a barrel as gas price also starts to climb

Stock markets have rebounded in Asia after days of heavy losses driven by the war in the Middle East, but oil and gas prices have continued to climb amid disruption to supplies.

South Korea’s KOSPI, which posted its biggest ever fall on Tuesday of 12%, rose by almost 10% on Thursday, while Japan’s Nikkei climbed by 1.9%. MSCI’s Asia-Pacific index excluding Japan jumped by 2.7%.

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Starmer’s slow start in the war against Iran could leave UK playing catch-up

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Prime minister’s initial refusal to help US could constrain Britain’s ability to protect its nationals in the Gulf and reassure allies

Britain knew that the US was considering attacking Iran from the moment Donald Trump told protesters that “help is coming” in the middle of January. It was obvious to the world that the White House was serious when the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group was sent to the Arabian Sea in late January.

But as Trump gradually built up his “massive armada”, reinforcing it with a second carrier strike group in mid-February, UK deployments were constrained and limited even though there was a recognition that it was likely allies and bases with British soldiers would be attacked in an Iranian retaliation.

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Gavin Newsom likens Israel to ‘an apartheid state’ and decries war on Iran

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California governor, promoting his memoir in LA, was asked if US should rethink military partnership with Israel

Gavin Newsom, the Democratic California governor, likened Israel to “an apartheid state” on Tuesday in comments sharply critical of the country’s joint war with the US against Iran.

Newsom, seen as a frontrunner for his party’s presidential nomination in 2028, made the comment during an appearance in Los Angeles to promote his book, Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery. He was asked if the US should rethink its military partnership with Israel.

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Pete Hegseth says US is ‘investigating’ deadly strike on girls’ school in Iran

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US defense secretary was evasive when asked about the airstrike that Iranian officials say killed at least 165 students

Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, offered few details and was evasive when asked about the deadly strike on a girls’ school in Iran, saying only that the US was “investigating” the incident.

Iranian officials say the attack, which happened on Saturday, killed at least 165 students.

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Israel strikes Tehran and Beirut as Iran vows ‘complete destruction’ in region

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Rapidly escalating war enters fifth day and spreads as far as Indian Ocean with sinking of Iranian vessel off Sri Lanka

Israel has carried out a wave of airstrikes on Iranian security targets and Hezbollah in Beirut as Tehran threatened the “complete destruction of the region’s military and economic infrastructure” as the rapidly escalating war entered its fifth day and reached as far as the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka.

The Israeli military said it had hit buildings in Iran belonging to the Basij, the volunteer police arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and buildings belonging to internal security forces. Police stations and IRGC headquarters in the Kurdish regions of north-western Iran were also razed by strikes, Kurdish media reported.

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Britain not ruling out future strikes on Iran missile sites, officials indicate

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‘We just don’t know what will happen,’ western officials say, as UK bases prepare for arrival of US heavy bombers

Britain has not ruled out participating in future strikes against Iranian ballistic missile launch sites, officials have indicated.

US heavy bombers are expected to reach UK bases at Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands and Fairford in Gloucestershire in the next few days, from where they are expected to attack Iran’s underground “missile cities”.

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Fire caused by drone strike on US consulate in Dubai has been extinguished, officials say

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No injuries have been reported in the strike and fire, Dubai’s media office said on Tuesday

Authorities have ​put down ‌a limited fire near ⁠the ​US consulate ​in Dubai due to ​a ​drone strike, with no injuries reported, according to Dubai’s media office on Tuesday.

In a statement posted online, the media office said: “Dubai authorities have confirmed that a fire resulting from a drone-related incident near the US Consulate has been successfully contained.”

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Iran has largely halted oil and gas exports through strait of Hormuz

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At least four tankers have been struck by drones and maritime traffic has dropped by 80%, reports say

Iran has in effect closed the strait of Hormuz to oil and gas exports for the past four days with a mixture of drone strikes and fear that has halted commercial maritime traffic despite intense US attacks on Iran’s navy.

At least four tankers have been struck and Lloyd’s List Intelligence reported that seaborne traffic had dropped by 80% on Sunday, with little sign of a return as key maritime insurers cancelled cover the next day.

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China calls for vessels in strait of Hormuz to be protected amid soaring shipping costs

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Beijing’s foreign ministry urges ‘all parties’ to avoid escalation as number of crossings drops 60% in one day

The Chinese government has called for vessels passing through the strait of Hormuz to be protected by all sides in the escalating Iran conflict, as shipping freight rates soared.

Maritime traffic through the strait – a narrow channel on Iran’s southern border that connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman – has effectively been closed since the US and Israel launched missile attacks on Iran at the weekend, prompting a retaliation from Tehran.

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US strikes on Iran triggered by Israel’s plan to launch attack, Rubio says

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Democrats disturbed by rationale that Trump ordered pre-emptive strikes out of concern about Tehran retaliation

Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said, in a new explanation for Washington’s surprise entry into the conflict.

The rationale drew divided reviews from top members of Congress who on Monday evening received the first briefing by the Trump administration since it ordered the air campaign to begin over the weekend.

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Some flights depart Middle East amid travel chaos as US urges its citizens to leave region

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Select departures organised as US state department warns Americans to leave on commercial flights ‘due to safety risks’

Travellers stranded by a widening war in the Middle East began departing the United Arab Emirates onboard a small number of evacuation flights on Monday, as governments around the world worked to extract their citizens from the region.

Etihad Airways and Emirates, the airlines based in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, respectively, and the budget carrier FlyDubai said they would operate limited flights after the chaos and damaged caused by Iranian missiles and drones.

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Civilian deaths in Iran pass 200 amid fear of bombs and regime clampdown

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As US-Israeli airstrikes hit their cities, people tell of how the authorities are warning them off the streets

At least 200 civilians have been killed since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran last weekend, according to rights groups, as people inside Iran told the Guardian they were fearful of a rising death toll.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society said that at least 555 people had been killed across Iran. However, in its latest update, the Norway-based human rights group Hengaw said the death toll on day three had reached at least 1,500, including 200 civilians and 1,300 members of the Iranian forces.

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RAF airbase in Cyprus hit, two more drones shot down as Cooper defends decision to allow US to use UK bases for Iran strikes – UK politics live

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Foreign secretary confirms strike on Akrotiri base but says it ‘simply not true’ the UK is being dragged into an Iraq-style conflict

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge went on Sky News to criticise Keir Starmer and his handling of the conflict.

“I’ve been very clear for weeks that if we were in government and the US had asked for our permission, we would have given them permission…but what they got with the prime minister as we saw last summer with the other bombing of nuclear facilities is the worst of both worlds: sitting on the fence, not showing strong leadership, very unclear.

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Middle East crisis live: Kuwait mistakenly shoots down three US fighter planes, as US says Iran’s ‘reckless’ attacks threaten regional stability

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Israeli military says fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah could take ‘many’ more days; US crew bailed out safely after crash-landing, says Kuwait

Bahrain has said that one person was killed by shrapnel from an intercepted missile. The death of a foreign worker at Salman Industrial City, working on a boat there, marks the kingdom’s first reported fatality in the war.

Bahrain, home to the US navy’s 5th fleet, said it intercepted 61 missiles and 34 attack drones launched against it. It said some shrapnel had gotten through, striking buildings and the naval base.

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Democrats thrown into disarray as US offensive on Iran creates cracks

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Lawmakers from Sanders to Mark Kelly offer mixed feelings on Trump’s action and killing of Iranian supreme leader

As Republicans celebrated the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with praise for Donald Trump’s decisive action, Democrats faced their own divisions and a reckoning over how to present a united front.

Most were quick to condemn the US president for sidelining Congress to launch an illegal and unconstitutional war and demanded a swift vote on a war powers resolution that would restrain his military onslaught.

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Israel strikes Lebanon after Iran ally Hezbollah fires missiles over border

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Conflict spreads as militant group targets Israel over Ali Khamenei killing and IDF responds with Beirut strikes

Israel has carried out heavy airstrikes on the Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs of Beirut after the Iran-backed Lebanese group launched missiles and drones towards Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Residents of Beirut were woken by the sounds of about a dozen blasts at 3am as Israel struck three different locations in the south of Lebanon’s capital. Bombings continued into the late hours of the morning, with the area almost entirely deserted by the time of a strike at around noon.

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Hezbollah said to have launched drone that struck UK RAF airbase in Cyprus

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Two more drones intercepted on Monday, authorities say, in what appears to be sustained targeting of base

A one-way attack drone – said to have been launched by Lebanon’s Hezbollah – struck the UK’s RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus at about midnight on Sunday, prompting a partial evacuation of the military facility.

Two more drones were successfully intercepted on Monday morning, the Cypriot authorities said, as part of what appears to be a sustained targeting of the base on the third day of the war in the Middle East.

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‘Simply not true’ UK is being dragged into Iraq-style conflict, says foreign secretary

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Yvette Cooper says plans under consideration to evacuate about 300,000 Britons from Middle East amid Iran war

It is “simply not true” that the UK is being dragged into another Iraq-style conflict in the Middle East, Yvette Cooper has said, after an RAF base in Cyprus was struck by an Iranian drone.

The attack was part of a barrage of strikes by Tehran around the Middle East after a US-Israeli attack on Saturday that killed the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The UK foreign secretary confirmed ministers were considering possible plans to evacuate about 300,000 Britons from the region.

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UK to allow US to use British bases for defensive strikes against Iran

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Keir Starmer says decision was taken amid increasingly reckless Iranian actions, as Liberal Democrats demand parliamentary vote

The UK has agreed to let the US use British military bases to attack Iranian missile sites, Keir Starmer has said.

The UK has so far not been involved in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, but in a recorded statement on Sunday evening, the prime minister said that Iran’s approach was becoming more reckless and putting British lives at risk, leading to the decision to allow the US to use two of its military bases.

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Foreign Office starts planning evacuation of thousands of Britons in Middle East

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About 200,000 nationals thought to be in the region as tensions rise after US-Israeli attacks on Iranian regime

The Foreign Office is drawing up plans to evacuate tens of thousands of British citizens if war in the Middle East escalates, with many travellers currently stranded in Dubai.

Keir Starmer said on Sunday that about 200,000 British people are in the region, on holiday or otherwise travelling across the Gulf. He urged everyone in areas targeted by Iranian strikes to register with the Foreign Office to receive advice, with about 94,000 doing that so far.

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