DUBAI/WASHINGTON, March 2 (Reuters) – The U.S. and Israeli air war against Iran widened on Monday, with no end in sight as Israel attacked Lebanon in response to strikes by Hezbollah and Iran kept up its attacks on Gulf states that host U.S. military bases.
U.S. President Donald Trump said the operation could continue for weeks and that it was unclear who was in charge in Iran after the targeted killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening hours of the U.S.-Israel campaign over the weekend.
The attack on Iran has pitched the Gulf into war, killed scores of civilians in Iran, Israel and Lebanon, thrown global air transport into chaos and shut down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s oil trade skirts the Iranian coast, sending oil prices surging.
Underlining the risks, Kuwait mistakenly shot down three American F-15E fighter jets during an Iranian attack, U.S. Central Command said. All six crew members ejected and were safely recovered.
The U.S. military said it had struck more than 1,250 targets in Iran and destroyed 11 Iranian ships. Six U.S. service personnel have been killed so far, all in Iran’s retaliatory attacks over the weekend on Kuwait.
As night fell on Monday, Israel warned of imminent attacks on towns in Lebanon and said it had attacked the complex that houses Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB in Tehran. Explosions shook buildings across Tel Aviv as air defenses intercepted incoming Iranian missiles.
Early on Tuesday, two drones struck the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, causing minor damage and starting a fire, Saudi Arabia’s Defence Ministry said.
For Trump, joining Israel to attack Iran amounts to the biggest U.S. foreign policy gamble in decades and a major political risk for his Republican Party in this year’s midterm elections. Only one in four Americans support the Iran campaign, according to a weekend Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Average U.S. retail gasoline prices rose above $3 per gallon, in part due to the conflict, as Trump faces growing discontent over bread-and-butter issues.
WAR WIDENS TO LEBANON
Trump has said the U.S. faced an imminent threat from Iran that justified war, although he gave no specifics and some U.S. lawmakers said he has shown no evidence to back that assessment.
Before briefing lawmakers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday the U.S. acted preemptively because it knew of its close ally Israel’s determination and plans to strike Iran.
“We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio said.
In his most extensive public comments so far on the conflict, Trump on Monday said he had ordered the attack to thwart Tehran’s nuclear program and a ballistic missile program that he said was growing rapidly.
Trump gave no sign that the operation would end soon, and military officials said more U.S. forces were being sent to the region.
“Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that,” Trump said at the White House.
A new front in the war opened on Monday when the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, one of Tehran’s principal allies in the Middle East, launched missiles and drones towards Israel.
Israel responded with sweeping airstrikes on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut. The Lebanese state news agency NNA said at least 31 people had been killed and 149 injured.
STATE DEPARTMENT WARNING
The U.S. State Department on Monday urged Americans to immediately leave more than a dozen countries in the region, including every Gulf and Levant state, although airspace closures have made doing so neither easy nor cheap.
Turkey joined Russia and China in condemning the war, which President Tayyip Erdogan called a “clear violation” of international law.
Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon, and it said the U.S. assault was unprovoked, occurring as Tehran negotiated a nuclear accord with Trump’s envoys. Trump withdrew from a prior international agreement curbing Iran’s nuclear program during his first term in 2018.
Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, said on social media that Iran would not negotiate with Trump, who had “delusional ambitions.”
Within Iran, where residents have jammed highways to flee the bombing, there was uncertainty about the future mixed with euphoria, apprehension and rage.
Many have openly celebrated the death of Khamenei, 86, who ruled since 1989 and directed security forces that killed thousands of anti-government protesters early this year.
But the conservative clerical leaders have shown no sign of yielding power, and military experts say airstrikes without ground forces may not be enough to drive them out, a possibility Trump said he had not ruled out.
Meanwhile, scores of Iranians have been reported killed in strikes, including several that hit apparent civilian targets.
“They are killing children, they are attacking hospitals. Is this the kind of democracy Trump wants to bring us?” Morteza Sedighi, a 52-year-old teacher, said by phone from Tabriz in northwestern Iran. “Innocent people were first killed by the regime and now by Israel and the United States.”
As Washington’s allies in the Gulf came under renewed attack from Iranian missiles and drones, black smoke rose above the area around the U.S. embassy in Kuwait. There were loud blasts in Dubai and Samha in the United Arab Emirates, and in the Qatari capital Doha.
Qatar, one of the world’s biggest exporters of liquefied natural gas, halted production, with no prospect of being able to ship safely through the chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia shut its biggest refinery after drone strikes caused a fire there, one of a number of energy installations that became targets.
