Iran war enters second month with attacks

TEHRAN (AFP) — Gulf countries and Israel came under missile fire and Israeli forces struck Iran on Saturday, as the war raged into its second month with Washington expressing hopes for progress in talks with Tehran.

In a sign that the conflict may be expanding further, Israel’s military said air defenses responded to a missile launched from Yemen — the first from Iran’s ally since the start of the war on 28 February, and after threats from Iran’s Houthi allies to launch attacks.

The war began when the United States and Israel launched airstrikes across Iran, killing supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and sending shockwaves across the globe.

A month later the conflict showed no sign of ending, with Israel announcing fresh strikes on Tehran and an Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalist in the city reporting around 10 intense blasts and a plume of black smoke.

Iranian media said on Saturday strikes hit multiple residential areas, killing more than a dozen people overnight.

Strikes on residential areas in Borujerd, a city in the western province of Lorestan, killed “seven and wounded 36 others,” Fars News Agency quoted provincial official Ghodratollah Valadi as saying.

Similar attacks on the northwestern city of Zanjan on Saturday killed at least five people and wounded seven others, according to ISNA, quoting the city’s political deputy governor Ali Sadeghi.

AFP was not able to independently verify any of these tolls.

Citing a statement by the Khuzestan Steel Company in Iran’s southwest, Shargh daily said the plant’s “production lines have been shut down” after several units and steelmaking facilities were hit by strikes on Friday.

Gulf states attacked

An Iranian missile and drone attack on the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia wounded at least 12 American soldiers, two of them seriously, according to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, citing unidentified officials.

Iran’s military said Saturday that it had targeted a US logistics vessel near the Omani port of Salalah.

“A logistics vessel supporting the aggressive US army was targeted by the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran at a considerable distance from the port of Salalah in Oman,” Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesperson for Iran’s central military command said in a statement carried by state TV.

Emirati authorities said debris from a successful missile interception started fires at an Abu Dhabi industrial zone, injuring five Indian nationals.

Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted a missile and several drones, and Bahrain said a blaze caused by the “Iranian aggression” had been brought under control.

The radar system at Kuwait’s international airport was heavily damaged in a drone attack on Saturday, Kuwaiti authorities said.

The attack on the tiny Gulf country caused no casualties, a civil aviation spokesperson told Kuwait’s official news agency, but the radar system was badly damaged.

In Israel, repeated air raid sirens sent people to shelters, including in Tel Aviv where one man was killed and two others wounded, and in the country’s north, where media reported a simultaneous attack from Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.

An explosion was heard on Saturday morning near the international airport of Erbil, a city in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, an AFP journalist reported and a witness said they saw smoke.

Erbil is home to a major US consulate complex, while its airport houses military advisors attached to a US-led international anti-jihadist coalition. Regular drone attacks by pro-Iran armed groups are usually intercepted by air defenses.

The US embassy and Iraq released statements late on Friday, announcing the creation of a “High Joint Coordination Committee” to oversee efforts to tackle attacks in Iraq.

“The Iraqi and US sides decided to intensify cooperation to prevent terrorist attacks and ensure that Iraqi territory is not used as a launching point for any aggression against the Iraqi people, the Iraqi Security Forces, Iraqi strategic facilities and assets, as well as against US personnel, diplomatic missions, and the Global Coalition,” the US embassy in Baghdad said in a statement posted on X.

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said Friday he believes Iran would hold talks with Washington “this week, we’re certainly hopeful for it.”

Washington expected Tehran to respond to a 15-point US peace plan, he told a business forum in Miami. “It could solve it all.”

One major issue has been the near-closure of the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, which has sent markets into turmoil and pushed oil prices to levels not seen since the start of the war in Ukraine.

Thai ship passes Hormuz

Thailand has reached an agreement with Iran to allow Thai oil vessels safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, the Southeast Asian nation’s prime minister said on Saturday.

Iranian forces have effectively slowed shipping through the strait to a trickle during the Middle East war.

“An agreement has been reached to allow Thai oil tankers to transit safely through the Strait of Hormuz,” Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told a news conference, adding that the development would alleviate concerns over fuel imports.

“With this agreement in place, there is greater confidence that disruptions like those seen in early March will not recur,” he added.

More than 80 percent of the crude oil and liquefied natural gas that passes through the Strait of Hormuz heads to Asia, according to the US Energy Information Administration.