The US has carried out large-scale precision strikes on Kharg Island in Iran, hitting more than 90 Iranian military targets, US Central Command said on Saturday, as Tehran continues attacks on Gulf states.
The strike destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers and multiple other military sites, the US military said in a post on X.
“US forces successfully struck more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg Island, while preserving the oil infrastructure,” Centcom said.
President Donald Trump warned, however, that he would “immediately reconsider” the decision not to target oil facilities “should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the free and safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz”.
Later he said that "many countries" were now considering sending warships to escort tankers through the strait.
As the war entered its third week, Iran struck a defiant note, playing down the extent of the damage on Kharg while threatening to step up its attacks.
Oil exports from the island were continuing normally despite the US attack, a senior provincial governor was quoted by the IRNA news agency as saying.
Kharg, a small coral island off the south-western coast, is where petroleum from Iran's oilfields arrives through undersea pipelines to be loaded on to tankers.
China is the primary destination for Iranian oil, importing about 80 per cent of its exports.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran would respond to any attack on its energy facilities and warned it would target American companies in the region or companies in which the US had shares.
Gulf states continued intercepting Iranian projectiles, with UAE defences dealing with nine ballistic missiles and 33 drones on Saturday, the Ministry of Defence said.
The Fujairah Government Media Office said a fire broke out in the emirate as a result of falling debris after an Iranian drone was intercepted. No injuries were reported.
Authorities said civil defence teams were working to manage the situation and urged the public not to spread misinformation and to rely only on official sources.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had carried out attacks on Israel with Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported.
The US Embassy in Baghdad was hit in a missile attack on Saturday, Iraqi security sources said. They did not give further details.
The UAE also condemned the targeting of its consulate in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region for the second time this week.
Two security personnel were injured in the drone attack and the consulate building was damaged, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. It did not specify when the attack took place but a similar incident was condemned by the ministry on Tuesday.
Since erupting on February 28 with the US-Israeli assault on Iran, the war has reverberated through the region and sparked an oil crisis.
Iran has largely halted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which around 20 per cent of global oil and seaborne liquefied natural gas is supplied.
India has sought safe passage for 22 of its vessels stranded west of the waterway, a ministry spokesperson said on Saturday, after Iran allowed a few Indian ships through, in a rare exception to the blockade.
Tehran's ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, confirmed that Iran had allowed some Indian vessels through the strait. He was speaking on broadcaster India Today's conclave in New Delhi.
