The Japan Times - US, Iran trade threats to target infrastructure in Middle East

The tit-for-tat threats came as the war entered its fourth week and continued to reverberate across the Middle East, with alarm mounting over strikes around nuclear sites.

Trump, under pressure over rising fuel prices, raised the stakes by announcing a countdown over Tehran's de facto blockade of the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping route.

Writing on Truth Social, Trump said the US would "hit and obliterate" Iranian power plants "starting with the biggest one first" if Tehran did not fully reopen the strait within 48 hours, or 23:44 GMT on Monday according to the time of his post.

Iran said it would respond to any such attacks by targeting US energy, IT and desalination infrastructure across the region.

These "will be considered legitimate targets and will be irreversibly destroyed", Iran's powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on X, warning that oil prices would then "rise for a long time".

Iran's energy minister said US-Israeli strikes had already inflicted heavy damage on the country's water and energy infrastructure, with "dozens" of facilities hit.

- Nuclear worries -

Iran's defiance came a day after its missiles evaded Israel's much-vaunted air defences and struck two southern towns, including Dimona which houses a nuclear facility. The projectiles injured dozens.

"We thought we were safe," Galit Amir, a 50-year-old care provider, told AFP in Dimona. "We didn't expect this."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to pursue senior commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards "personally" as he inspected the damage in Arad, the other town struck by an Iranian missile.

Iran's attacks on Israel indicated that its arsenal still poses a threat across the region, even after Trump and Netanyahu claimed to have decimated Tehran's forces.

Israel's military said Sunday that Iran had fired more than 400 ballistic missiles at Israel since the start of the war on February 28, with around 92 percent of them intercepted.

Dimona hosts what is widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, although Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, insisting the site is for research.

The missile fell about five kilometres (three miles) from the nuclear facility, according to rescuers.

Iran said the strike on Dimona was in response to an earlier attack on its nuclear site at Natanz.

Asked about Natanz, the Israeli military said it was "not aware of a strike".

"The war in the Middle East has reached a perilous stage" with the strikes on Natanz and Dimona, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.

"I urgently call on all parties to exercise maximum military restraint and avoid any actions that could trigger nuclear incidents," he said.

Tedros said the International Atomic Energy Agency was looking into the strikes, and "no indications of abnormal or increased off-site radiation levels have been reported".

- Hormuz blockade -

Amid concerns about the economic fallout from the war, Trump has turned his attention to the blockaded Strait of Hormuz which typically carries around a fifth of the world's crude oil and liquefied natural gas.

The standoff has rattled markets and sent fuel prices soaring, with North Sea Brent crude now trading above $105 a barrel, feeding fears about higher inflation and weaker global growth.

Trump has slammed NATO allies as "cowards" and urged them to secure the strait, as thousands more American Marines were headed to the Middle East.

A total of 22 mostly Western countries said on Saturday they were ready to contribute to efforts ensuring safe passage in the vital waterway.

Patrick Pouyanne, CEO of TotalEnergies, said the economic outlook would worsen the longer the conflict went on.

"If it's more than six months, we will have some real impacts. All the economies of the world will be damaged," he told Chinese channel CGTN during a visit to Beijing.

- Attacks across the region -

The impact from the war continued to be felt across the region.

Early Sunday morning, AFP journalists in Jerusalem heard blasts and air raid sirens as Iran launched a fresh barrage of missiles at Israel.

Israel launched a wave of strikes on the Iranian capital Tehran in response.

Israel said rocket fire from Lebanon killed one person Sunday as Hezbollah said it attacked soldiers in northern Israel, the first fatality there in fire from Lebanon since the latest war erupted.

Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei in Israeli-US attacks.

Israel's military struck a key bridge in south Lebanon, an AFP correspondent said, after Israel's defence minister said the army had been ordered to destroy more bridges over the Litani River.

British minister Steve Reed meanwhile said one missile recently launched by Iran targeting a joint UK-US military base in the Indian Ocean "fell short" while another missile was "intercepted".

The base lies nearly 4,000 kilometres from Iran's coast, making it the longest-range missile attack to date from Iran.

Iran also kept up retaliatory attacks on Gulf nations it accuses of serving as a launchpad for US strikes.

Saudi Arabia said Sunday it detected three ballistic missiles around the capital Riyadh. One was intercepted, and two fell in uninhabited areas, the defence ministry said.

The United Arab Emirates said it responded to new missile and drone attacks from Iran.

"The only common feeling these days is uncertainty about what lies ahead and what the outcome will be" of this war, 31-year-old Tehran resident Shiva told AFP.

"We've all lost our work. We have no income, and we don't know how long we can continue like this," she added.

burs-mfp/jsa

H.Takahashi--JT