Saturday 28th March: Eight things we learned today
- Yemen’s Houthi have confirmed an attack on Israel, in a further expansion of the conflict in the Middle East
- An Israeli strike has killed three journalists in south Lebanon, according to reports
- Israel’s military says it has launched new strikes on Iran
- Fifteen US troops were wounded, five of them seriously, in an Iranian military strike on Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia
- Israel Defense Forces has hit the headquarters of the Iranian regime’s Marine Industries Organization in Tehran
- US secretary of state Marco Rubio says the US expects the military campaign against Iran to end within weeks
- US has destroyed just one third of Iranian missiles, drones - report
- Images and footage posted on social media appear to show US antitank mines discovered in neighborhood in Iran
Key Reads
- Analysis: War in Iran undercuts Irish Government’s budgetary plans
- “The rift is too deep”: Europe leaders are in no mood to help the US
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has hit tthe headquarters of the Iranian regime’s Marine Industries Organization (MIO) in Tehran.
“This headquarters is responsible for the research, development, and production of a wide range of naval weaponry,” it said adding that it was struck as part of “a wide-scale wave of strikes” targeting Iranian infrastructure.
Israel accused of war crime over killing of journalists
Israel killed three journalists in south Lebanon, their TV channels and authorities said, prompting condemnation from the Lebanese government who called the killings a “blatant war crime”.
Ali Shoeib, from the Hezbollah-owned al-Manar television station, Fatima Ftouni and her brother and cameraman Mohammed Ftouni from the pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, were killed in the strike targeting their car.
Israel claimed the attack shortly afterwards, saying the target was Shoeib, whom it accused of being a Hezbollah “terrorist” in an intelligence unit who had reported on the locations of Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military provided no further evidence to support the claim and made no comment on the killing of the other journalists.
Shoeib was a well known war correspondent in Lebanon, where he reported for al-Manar for nearly three decades. His death was met with a wave of condolences from audiences and journalists in Lebanon, many of whom said he was considered a mentor figure in Lebanese journalism. Ftouni had also been reporting from the frontlines of the Israel-Hezbollah war in recent days, filming in front of battles in the town of Taybeh, south Lebanon. Her own family had been killed in Israeli strikes weeks earlier.
Eighteen months earlier, her and her colleagues were struck by an Israeli bomb while they were sleeping in a hotel in south Lebanon; Ftouni survived but two of her colleagues did not. Commenting on the deaths of her colleagues at the time, Ftouni said that “it is the silence of the international community that let this happen”.
The three journalists were struck as they were driving in Jezzine, a district in south Lebanon far from the frontlines. Local television showed at least four missiles were shot at the car and footage appeared to show a missile being fired between the journalists’ car and bystanders as the latter tried to approach and help. Video of the aftermath showed singed press jackets and helmets, as well as tripods and microphones that had been pulled from the car.
The Israeli military said the strike was aimed at Shoeib, who it claimed was a member of Hezbollah’s Radwan force: the most elite unit of the pro-Iran armed group which specialises in cross-border raids. It said that Shoeib’s contact with senior members of Hezbollah, and his work documenting the location of Israeli forces, was evidence he was a military member of the group.
International law says that regardless of political affiliation, journalists are considered civilians and targeting them is a war crime. Eight out of the nine journalists killed by Israel in Lebanon since 13 October 2023 worked for Hezbollah-affiliated outlets, and analysts have suggested the killings come as a part of Israel’s strategy of attacking the civilian wings of the group.
Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, described the journalists as “civilians doing their professional duty”. Writing on X, he said: “It is a brazen crime that violates all treaties and norms through which journalists enjoy international protection in war.”
The Israeli military has made similar claims about several journalists it killed in Gaza, whom it said also worked as Hamas operatives, including Anas al-Sharif, a correspondent for Al Jazeera. Israel has killed more than 220 journalists since 2023, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Lebanon’s minister of information, Paul Morcos, said that the killing of the three journalists on Saturday “constitutes a deliberate and blatant war crime against the media and the mission of journalism”. He also said that the Lebanese government had compiled a list of Israeli attacks against healthcare workers and media personnel, which it will submit to the UN and the EU.
The fighting in Lebanon started when Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel on 2 March after the US-Israeli assault on Iran, triggering an Israeli aerial campaign and invasion. Israeli attacks have killed 1,189 people and wounded 3,427 in Lebanon, including 48 healthcare workers, according to the Lebanese ministry of health. Three Israeli soldiers in South Lebanon and one person in northern Israel have been killed by Hezbollah fire.
Message from the Editor
US has destroyed just one third of Iranian missiles. drones - report
The US has only destroyed about a third of Iran’s missile and drone arsenal after a month of its war against Iran which aimed to degrade the country’s ballistic missile capabilities, according to a report by Reuters.
About a third of Tehran’s missiles have been destroyed, and another third was likely to be damaged or buried in underground tunnels and bunkers, the report suggested. A similar assessment was made about the country’s drone arsenal.
The report, based on five people familiar with US intelligence, suggests that while most of Iran’s missiles are immediately inaccessible, the country still has a sizeable stockpile.
Blow to aluminium supply as production facility damaged by drone attack
Emirates Global Aluminium’s biggest metal-producing plant sustained “significant damage” during an Iranian missile and drone attack today, another blow to the region’s commodity industry from the Middle East war.
The United Arab Emirates company is the region’s biggest aluminum producer and a major supplier to global markets. Producers of energy and metals in the Persian Gulf are already cut off from global markets by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and attacks like this are likely to extend the time it takes for operations to the return to normal when the war is over.
EGA is still assessing damage from the attack on its Al Taweelah site located at the Khalifa Port industrial zone in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, the company said in a statement. It confirmed that several employees were injured, but declined to say whether operations at the facility had been suspended.
The Abu Dhabi media office earlier on Saturday said six people were injured in three fires caused by ballistic missile interception debris in the vicinity of the Kezad industrial zone. The strikes were part of a series of attacks by Iran on Gulf countries, even as the Trump administration pursued discussions around a potential ceasefire.
Israel defends killing of Lebanese journalists
The Lebanese president Joseph Aoun has called Israel’s killing of three journalists in the south of the country “a blatant crime that violates all the norms and treaties under which journalists enjoy international protection in wars”.
According to news agency reports Ali Shoeib of Hizbullah’s Al Manar channel and Fatima Ftouni of Al Mayadeen, were killed alongside Ftouni’s brother, a cameraman.
Shoeib was one of Al Manar’s most prominent war correspondents.
In a statement, the Israeli military said it had targeted Shoeib, accusing him of being a “terrorist in the intelligence unit of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force”.
Shoeib, it said, “operated within the Hezbollah terrorist organisation under the guise of a journalist for the Al Manar network, while operating systematically to expose the locations of IDF soldiers operating in southern Lebanon and along the border”.
Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline reaches full capacity
Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, which circumvents the Strait of Hormuz, is pumping oil at its full capacity of 7 million barrels a day.
Crude oil exports from Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port on the Red Sea have now reached 5 million barrels a day, and the country is also exporting about 700,000 to 900,000 barrels a day of oil products, a Bloomberg report said.
Saudi Arabia’s Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Aramco CEO Amin Nasser had told reporters earlier in March on an earnings call that the East-West pipeline was expected to reach its full capacity of 7 million bpd in the coming days as customers re-route.
Evidence of US use of cluster bombs in Iran emerging
Images and footage posted on social media on Thursday by an independent journalist, as well as semiofficial Iranian news media, appear to show American antitank mines in two locations in southern Iran.
They appear to be American BLU-91 antitank mines, which are bundled together with BLU-92 antipersonnel mines and dispensed by a 500-pound cluster bomb that breaks apart midair, spreading the munitions and creating an instant minefield.
Their discovery, in the village of Kafari, near the city of Shiraz, was reported earlier by the investigative collective Bellingcat.
The New York Times has verified the location of these mines, which were a little more than a quarter-mile apart and a few miles from the Shiraz South Missile Base, but it has not been able to determine when and how they were dispersed — or by whom.
The mines can be dropped only by warplanes flying overhead. Given that the mines are packaged as a cluster weapon, they are banned by over 100 countries.
The U. military calls this cluster bomb “Gator.”
It is unclear whether the mines were aimed at the ballistic missile site miles to the south but fell well short of it, or if the target was a location in the village.
The US military’s Central Command declined a request for comment on Friday regarding whether the U.S. forces were using the weapons in their war against Iran.
The only conflict in which the United States is known to have used Gator mines is the 1991 Persian Gulf war, when more than 1,300 Gator bombs were dropped, releasing approximately 116,000 mines on Kuwait and Iraq.
The BLU-91 mine has a magnetic sensor that will trigger a detonation when it senses a vehicle driving over it. With less than a pound and a half of explosive, the mine is designed to fire upward through the underbelly of a tank, where the vehicle has the least amount of armor protection.
The mines are designed to self-destruct after a preset amount of time, though in practice that does not always happen — leaving behind extremely hazardous duds that can explode if mishandled.
Cluster weapons like the Gator have in the past been inaccurate in their delivery.
When dropped from high altitudes or in high winds during the Gulf War, Gator bombs and other cluster munitions often drifted significantly off course and missed their targets. New York Times
The situation at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant continues to deteriorate and attacks pose a direct threat to nuclear safety, the head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said on Saturday after another strike near the facility.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Friday that Iran had informed it of another strike in the vicinity of Bushehr, the third such incident in 10 days, with no damage to the operating reactor and no release of radiation reported.
Ukraine denies Iranian claims over air defence depot
Ukraine’s foreign ministry has denied a statement by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that claimed it had destroyed a Ukrainian air defence depot in Dubai.
“This is a lie. We officially refute this information,” Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesman for the ministry, told reporters.
“The Iranian regime frequently carries out such disinformation campaigns.”
The story comes soon after Ukraine signed a military agreement with Saudi Arabia as president Volodymyr Zelenskiy seeks to develop ties in the Middle East amid rising uncertainties over western support for his nation.
The accord lays the foundation for future military contracts, technological co-operation and investment with Saudi Arabia, Zelenskiy said on X on Friday after a meeting with crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The Ukrainian leader is leveraging his nation’s anti-drone warfare expertise amassed over the four years of fending off Russian aerial strikes to attract foreign support and funding.
Indian tankers carrying LPG crossing Strait of Hormuz
Two liquefied petroleum gas tankers are crossing the Strait of Hormuz bound for India, according to ship-tracking data.
The war against Iran has all but halted shipping through the strait, but Iran said this week that “non-hostile vessels” may transit the waterway if they co-ordinate with Iranian authorities.
The two India-flagged vessels have crossed the Gulf area and are in the eastern Strait of Hormuz, the data showed.
India is gradually moving its stranded LPG cargoes out from the strait, with four LPG tankers moved so far – Shivalik, Nanda Devi, Pine Gas and Jag Vasant.
India, the world’s second-largest LPG importer, is battling its worst gas crisis in decades, with the government cutting supplies for industries to shield households from any shortage of cooking gas.
Lebanese media has just reported that two broadcast journalists have died following an Israeli strike in the south of the country. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reports.
US aircraft carrier in Croatia for repairs following fire
The US aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, which had been deployed in operations against Iran, anchored in Croatia’s Adriatic port of Split today for repairs and maintenance.
The Ford, America’s newest and the world’s largest carrier, was operating in the Red Sea when a non-combat fire broke out in its main laundry room on March 12th, injuring three sailors.
Nearly 200 sailors were also treated for smoke-related issues, a US official said at the time. The fire took hours to bring under control and had an impact on roughly 100 sleeping berths.
The warship has been deployed for nine months and also took part in operations against Venezuela in the Caribbean prior to arriving in the Middle East.
It has been plagued by plumbing problems during its deployment, affecting the nearly 650 toilets.
The Ford had temporarily stopped at Souda Bay on the Greek island of Crete. The government of Croatia, which is a Nato ally of the US, approved its arrival earlier this week.
Could an aviation crisis be looming in Europe?
The aviation crisis starting to grip Asia is threatening to intensify and spread to Europe and beyond, as energy turmoil caused by the Iran war collides with seasonal travel demand, Bloomberg is reporting.
The amount of jet fuel lost because of the conflict is ultimately too much for the world’s refiners to offset.
Airlines from Vietnam to New Zealand have started cancelling flights as prices surge to record highs, while China has curbed fuel exports to secure supplies. Asia has been particularly affected because of its exposure to crude oil that normally comes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been blocked by Iran.
The European Union and the UK could be weeks away from similar conditions as they depend on supplies from refineries inside the Gulf.
Even in the US – a net oil exporter – some regions are reliant on vulnerable Asian supply, and carriers such as United Airlines are already responding to high prices by cancelling some unprofitable services.
“You can’t fly the same amount of flights without the same amount of jet fuel,” Vikas Dwivedi, global energy strategist at Macquarie Group, said in an interview. If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, there will be an acceleration of grounded planes over the coming weeks, he added.
Even if the vital waterway that connects oil infrastructure inside the Gulf to the rest of the world is opened soon, the damage done to the global supply chain means a full recovery will take weeks or months.
Trust needed before talks on conflict resolution – Iranian PM
Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian has told Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, that trust is needed to facilitate talks and mediation on the conflict in the Middle East, the prime minister’s office said this morning.
It said Pezeshkian had praised Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts and that the two leaders had discussed hostilities in the region and efforts to end the conflict during a call that lasted more than an hour. Sharif briefed Pezeshkian on Pakistan’s diplomatic contacts with the United States and Gulf states, it said.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, has confirmed he is to host the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt in Islamabad tomorrow and Monday for a series of “in-depth discussions” focusing on efforts to “de-escalate tensions in the region”.
Ukraine and UAE agree to work together on security
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has met United Arab Emirates president sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan after which he said they had agreed to co-operate in the field of security and defence.
“Our teams will finalise the details,” Zelenskiy said on the Telegram app.
The two leaders tackled opportunities to advance bilateral co-operation under the Comprehensive Economic Agreement between the two sides, the Emirati state news agency WAM said, without further elaborating.
They also discussed the security developments and military escalation in the region and their impact on international navigation and the global economy, WAM added.
Drones attack Kuwait’s main airport
Kuwait International Airport was targeted by multiple drone attacks that caused significant damage to its radar system but resulted in no casualties, state news agency KUNA has said citing the country’s Civil Aviation Authority.
Going back to the Iranian attack on an airbase in Saudi Arabia, more than two dozen US troops have been wounded in Iranian attacks on the Prince Sultan airbase in the past week, AP sources say.
Iran fired six ballistic missiles and 29 drones at the base in a Friday attack that wounded at least 15 troops, including five seriously, according to the sources.
US officials initially reported that at least 10 US troops were injured, including two seriously wounded. The base had come under attack twice earlier this week.
Yemen’s Houthis confirm attack on Israel
Yemen’s Houthis say an attack on Israel on Saturday came after continued targeting of infrastructure in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestinian territories.
The group said the attack was made with a barrage of missiles, adding that their operations would continue until the “aggression” on all fronts ends.
The entry into the war of the Houthis has called into question whether the rebel group, backed by Tehran, will again target commercial shipping travelling through the Red Sea corridor. – Guardian
Sirens sounding in Bahrain
Sirens have been sounding in Bahrain through Saturday morning, with authorities warnings of potential attacks.
The country’s interior ministry has urged people to head to the nearest safe location. Earlier in the day, the ministry said civil defence officials had extinguished a fire at a facility that had been targeted by Iran.
Bahrain has so far seen two deaths since the war began, with the most recent drone strike hitting a residential building in the capital Manama, according to the interior ministry.
in Oman, a worker has been injured in a drone attack at Salalah port while a crane suffered limited damage, Oman’s government said on Saturday.
Oman had served as a mediator between the US and Iran before the current war.
But earlier this month, Oman’s foreign minister claimed the US had “lost control of its own foreign policy” and accused Israel of persuading Donald Trump’s administration to go to war with Iran. – Guardian
US will end Iran campaign in weeks, claims Rubio
The US expects its military operations against Iran to conclude within weeks, not months, and Washington can meet all its objectives without using ground troops, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Friday.
Rubio told reporters after meeting G7 counterparts in France that Washington was “on or ahead of schedule in that operation, and expect to conclude it at the appropriate time here – a matter of weeks, not months”.
While he said the US could achieve its aims without ground troops, he acknowledged it was deploying some to the region “to give the president maximum optionality and maximum opportunity to adjust the contingencies, should they emerge”.
While the G7 met, Iran kept firing missiles at Israel and Gulf nations on Friday. – Guardian
At least 12 US soldiers injured in Iranian attack on US base
Elsewhere, an Iranian attack on a base in Saudi Arabia has wounded at least 12 American soldiers, two of them seriously, US media reported on Friday.
The attack on the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia included at least one missile and several drones, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported, citing officials.
The soldiers were inside a building at the base when it was struck, the Journal reported. Several aerial refuelling planes also reportedly suffered damage in the attack.
Saudi Arabia has previously intercepted several missiles fired near the base.
Iran has kept up retaliatory attacks on Gulf nations it accuses of serving as a launch pad for US strikes on it. – Guardian
Israel claims missile launched from Yemen
Good morning, and welcome to continuing coverage of the US and Israeli war on Iran.
The Israeli military claimed on Saturday it has identified the launch of a missile from Yemen, after Iran’s Houthi allies threatened to join the fighting.
A military statement said Israeli forces had “identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israeli territory, aerial defence systems are operating to intercept the threat”.
It was the first such statement mentioning a launch from Yemen during the war, which has entered its second month.
The statement follows reports the previous day that Iran had attacked Tel Aviv with at least five rounds of missiles in about five hours, triggering air defence systems and warning sirens late on Friday and into Saturday.
