Iran fired missiles at Israel and some Gulf nations, setting alight a refinery in Kuwait, while explosions could be heard around Tehran and the central Iranian city of Isfahan on Friday, as the United States prepared to further reinforce its already significant military forces in the Middle East.
As the war that began Feb. 28 was to enter its sixth week, Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait warned about incoming missile fire, although it was unclear if anything was struck. Activists reported strikes around Tehran and the central city of Isfahan but it wasn’t immediately clear what was hit.
Iranian drones struck Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery Friday, sparking fires at the facility. The state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. issued a statement on the attack, the third so far since the war began, and said firefighters were working to control the blazes. There were no injuries reported, the company said.
Iran’s attacks on Gulf region energy infrastructure and its tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas transits in peacetime, has sent oil prices skyrocketing.
Oil prices surged while Asian financial markets rose moderately during cautious trading. Benchmark U.S. crude rose 11.4% to $111.54 a barrel. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, jumped 7.8% to $109.03 per barrel.
U.S. President Donald Trump said U.S. forces will keep hitting Iran “very hard” in the next two or three weeks.
The largest American aircraft carrier in service sailed out of Split, in Croatia and “remains poised for full mission tasking in support of national objectives in any area of operation,” the Navy’s 6th Fleet announced.
It was unclear where it was going. The USS Abraham Lincoln remains in the Arabian Sea and the USS George H. W. Bush aircraft carrier departed Norfolk on Wednesday to head to the Mideast.
Here is the latest:
Zarif suggests low enrichment, regional nuclear facility for a deal
Iran’s former top diplomat suggested Tehran could down-blend its highly enriched uranium in a deal to end the war.
Mohammad Javad Zarif suggested Iran could enrich uranium below 3.67%, the level set by the 2015 nuclear deal U.S. President Donald Trump pulled America out of in 2018.
However, Trump has maintained Iran must have no enrichment.
Zarif also suggested the inclusion of China and Russia in any deal to do a single uranium enrichment site for all of the region, where Iran “would transfer all its enriched material and equipment to that space.”
That is a proposal suggested in previous rounds of talks.
Zarif also suggests Washington and Tehran could “explore dispatching diplomats to serve in their respective interest sections, restoring consular services and removing travel restrictions on each other’s citizens.”
The U.S. and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since 1980, when President Jimmy Carter severed ties over the hostage crisis.
Former Iran top diplomat suggests terms to end war
Iran’s former top diplomat offered terms Friday to see a ceasefire in the war with the United States and Israel.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, who helped reach the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, made the proposal in Foreign Affairs magazine in a piece published Friday.
While Zarif has no official position now in Iran’s theocracy, he helped get reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian elected.
He also would not have been able to publish such a piece without at least running the positions past senior members of the country’s theocracy.
While insisting Iran “is clearly winning” the war, Zarif wrote that Tehran “should offer to place limits on its nuclear program and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an end to all sanctions — a deal Washington wouldn’t take before but might accept now.”
It remains unclear how U.S. President Donald Trump would respond to such a pitch, particularly as Zarif referred to Trump’s close friend Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner as “completely illiterate on both geopolitics and nuclear technicalities.”
Human remains found on Thai ship
A team searching a Thai ship that was struck near the Strait of Hormuz on March 11 has found human remains onboard, the Thai Foreign Ministry said Friday.
The Mayuree Naree was hit by a projectile just north of Oman. Three of its crew members were declared missing.
The search team was hired by the ship’s owner, Precious Shipping Co. The company and the ministry did not say when the ship was searched or its current location. A previous search of the vessel was disclosed March 30.
The ministry said the team has not been able to immediately verify the identity of the remains, which were found in a damaged area of the ship.
Former CIA director warns strait could become ‘we break it, you own it’
Former CIA director Bill Burns is warning the crisis over Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz could become a case of “we break it, you own it” for America’s allies.
Burns, a former State Department diplomat, made the observation in a podcast by Foreign Affairs magazine.
He noted U.S. President Donald Trump could try a ground operation to take Iran’s Kharg Island, its main oil terminal, or territory along the strait, but both carry significant risks.
“Then there’s the third option, which is effectively declaring victory and the inversion of the old Colin Powell Pottery Barn rule, which was ‘we break it, we own it,’” Burns said, referencing a comment attributed to former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
“Instead, it would be, ‘we break it, you own it, and it’s over to you guys,’ whether it’s European allies or Gulf Arabs or anybody else to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Former CIA director calls Iran campaign ‘a war of choice’
Former CIA director Bill Burns has described the U.S.-Israeli war launched against Iran as “a war of choice” that may have only further empowered the most hard-line elements within its theocracy.
Burns, a former State Department diplomat, made the observation in a podcast by Foreign Affairs magazine.
“This is a regime that is inept at many things like managing its economy, but it is designed to preserve itself and designed to repress its own people and designed to withstand even the decapitation of its senior leadership,” said Burns, who secretly negotiated with the Iranians ahead of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers during the Obama administration.
Burns also disagreed with U.S. President Donald Trump’s assessment that there had been a “regime change” in the airstrike campaign killing top leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“In some ways, it’s certainly a much weaker regime, but it’s also one that’s even nastier and more radical and, you know, less open,” he said.
He added that Iran’s theocracy thought “victory is survival.”
“I’ve believed for a long time that this is a regime that’s on a kind of one-way street to its eventual collapse, but I worry that, you know, in this war, what we’ve done rather than accelerate that moment of collapse is slow it down a little bit,” Burns said.
French and South Korean presidents agree to help reopen strait
French President Emmanuel Macron and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung agreed Friday to work together to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and ease global economic uncertainties caused by the war in the Middle East.
In a televised briefing after their meeting in Seoul, Macron underscored the need for France and South Korea to cooperate to help reopen the strait and de-escalate Middle East animosities.
Lee said the two affirmed “their resolves to cooperate to secure the safe shipping route in the Strait of Hormuz.”
The two leaders did not elaborate on how they would help reopen the strait and took no questions.
Macron was making his first visit to South Korea since taking office in 2017.
Kuwait says Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery hit by Iranian drones
Iranian drones struck Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery Friday, sparking fires at the facility.
The state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. issued a statement on the attack and said firefighters were working to control the blazes .
There were no injuries reported, the company said.
Kuwait has blamed Iran, as well as Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq, for drone attacks targeting the small, oil-rich nation on the northern edge of the Persian Gulf.
Kuwait operates three oil refineries. Mina al-Ahmadi has come under attack at least three times in the war so far.
Refineries are key to Kuwait’s oil production because without them, oil wells would have to be shut down for lack of a destination for the oil.
Restarting refineries is extremely time consuming for safety reasons and those wells would remain largely inactive until refineries are back on line.
Oil prices surge while Asian share prices rise moderately
Oil prices continued to surge on worries of a prolonged Iran war but the Asian markets that were open Friday rose moderately in cautious trading, while others were closed for the Good Friday holidays.
Benchmark U.S. crude rose 11.4% to $111.54 a barrel. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, jumped 7.8% to $109.03 per barrel.
The U.S. only relies on the Persian Gulf for a fraction of the oil it imports, but oil is a commodity and prices are set in a global market.
The situation is very different in Asia. Japan, for example, relies on access to the Strait of Hormuz for much of the nation’s oil import needs and would need to rely on alternative routes. But some analysts say Japan and oher nations are counting on an agreement with Iran to allow transports.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 0.9% in Friday morning trading to 52,938.62. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 2.1% to 5,344.41. The Shanghai Composite sank 0.5% to 3,899.57. Trading was closed in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Indonesia and India.
Wall Street, where trading is closed Friday, finished its first winning week since the start of the Iran war, although trading started out with a decline driven by a surge in oil prices.
Bangladesh implements austerity measures
Bangladesh is curtailing office hours and enforcing early closure of malls and shops beginning Friday to handle its energy crisis related to the war.
The country’s cabinet ordered 30% spending cuts for fuel and power at government offices, suspended some staff training and stopped purchases of new vehicles, ships and aircraft. Decorative lighting will not be allowed for celebrations.
Bangladesh, a nation of more than 170 million people, is seeking alternative fuel sources and $2.5 billion in external financing for imports, which account for 95% of its fuel.
Australia urges weekend motorists to refuel in cities
Australian Energy Minister Chris Bowen on Friday urged motorists getting away for a long weekend during the Easter holiday to fill up in cities because most of the nation’s fuel shortages are in rural areas.
Among 2,400 gas stations in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, 182 had run out of diesel by Friday.
In Australia’s second-most populous state, Victoria, 76 gas stations were out of diesel. In the remaining states ranked by the most populous first, Queensland had 75 stations without diesel, Western Australia had 37, South Australia had 28 and in Tasmania there were seven.
“For those Australians planning a road trip this weekend, given our shortages are predominantly in rural and regional Australia, it makes sense to fill up in the city to help the country if you can,” Bowen said in Sydney.
The government, which blamed regional shortages on panic buying and distribution problems, is concentrating on delivering fuel to farmers for planting crops.
