U.S.
President Donald Trump and Iran threatened to escalate their war
by attacking energy facilities in the Gulf, a potential widening
of hostilities that could deepen a regional crisis and add to
concerns in global markets.
Air raid sirens sounded across Israel from the early hours of
Sunday morning, warning of incoming missiles from Iran, after
scores of people were hurt overnight in two separate attacks in
the southern Israeli towns of Arad and Dimona.
The Israeli military said hours later that it was striking
Tehran in response.
Trump on Saturday threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants
if Tehran did not fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48
hours, suggesting a significant escalation barely a day after he
talked about “winding down” the war, now in its fourth week.
Iran said on Sunday it would attack U.S. infrastructure,
including energy facilities in the Gulf, if Trump carried out
his threat, which he made as U.S. Marines and heavy landing
craft continued to head to the region.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf wrote on X
that critical infrastructure and energy facilities in the Middle
East could be “irreversibly destroyed” should Iranian power
plants be attacked.
More than 2,000 people have been killed during the war the U.S.
and Israel launched on February 28, which has upended markets,
spiked fuel costs, fuelled global inflation fears and convulsed
the postwar Western alliance.
Elevated uncertainty
“President Trump’s threat has now placed a 48-hour ticking
time bomb of elevated uncertainty over markets,” said IG market
analyst Tony Sycamore, who expects stock markets to fall on
Monday as energy supplies remain strained.
Oil prices jumped on Friday, ending the day at their highest
in nearly four years, after Iraq declared force majeure on all
oilfields developed by foreign firms, Israel attacked a major
gas field in Iran and Tehran responded with strikes on
neighbours Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait.
Iranian attacks have effectively closed the Strait of
Hormuz, a narrow choke point that carries around a fifth of
global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, causing the worst
oil crisis since the 1970s. Its near-closure sent European gas
prices surging as much as 35% last week.
“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of
Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the
United States of America will hit and obliterate their various
POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Trump posted
on social media around 7:45 p.m. EDT (2345 GMT) on Saturday.
The Strait of Hormuz remains open to all shipping except vessels
linked to “Iran’s enemies”, the country’s representative to the
International Maritime Organisation was quoted as saying in
Iranian media reports published on Sunday.
Ali Mousavi was speaking earlier in the week to Chinese news
agency Xinhua, before Trump’s threat to attack Iranian power
plants if the strait was not “fully open” within 48 hours.
Mousavi said passage through the waterway was possible by
coordinating security and safety arrangements with Tehran.
Ship-tracking data has shown some vessels, such as
Indian-flagged ships and a Pakistani oil tanker, have negotiated
safe passage through the strait. Pakistan has good ties with
Iran while keeping close relations with the U.S. and Saudi
Arabia.
Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya military command headquarters said
on Sunday if the U.S. hit Iran’s fuel and energy infrastructure,
Iran would launch attacks on all U.S. energy, information
technology and desalination infrastructure in the region.
The Islamic republic’s power grid is deeply intertwined with
its energy sector. Striking major plants could trigger
blackouts, crippling everything from pumps and refineries to
export terminals and military command centres.
While some Gulf desert states such as Saudi Arabia, Oman and the
UAE have access to more than one sea to draw water from for
desalination, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait are crowded along the
shoreline of the Gulf with no other coastline.
Iran expands risks with long-range missiles
Tehran fired long-range missiles for the first time on
Saturday, expanding the risk of attacks beyond the Middle East,
while an Iranian strike landed near Israel’s secretive nuclear
reactor about 13 km (8 miles) southeast of the city of Dimona.
Iran fired two ballistic missiles with a range of 4,000 km
(2,500 miles) at the U.S.-British Indian Ocean military base at
Diego Garcia, said Israeli military chief Eyal Zamir.
The fighting in the Gulf has been taking place alongside a
confrontation on a separate front between Israel and Lebanon’s
Hezbollah, backed by Iran, with the Israeli military saying on
Sunday its troops had raided a number of the armed group’s sites
in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah said it had attacked several border areas in
northern Israel. Israeli emergency services said one person was
killed in an Israeli kibbutz near the border, the first fatality
in Israel killed by fire from Lebanon since escalation began.
Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel since it
entered the regional war on March 2, prompting an Israeli
offensive that has killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon.
Israel said it had instructed the military to accelerate the
demolition of Lebanese homes in “frontline villages” to end
threats to Israeli communities, and to destroy all bridges over
Lebanon’s Litani river which it said were used for “terrorist
activity”.
Pope Leo appealed for an end to the conflict. “The death and
suffering caused by this war are a scandal to the whole human
family,” he said.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted last week, found 59 per cent of
Americans disapprove of U.S. military strikes against Iran, with
37 per cent approving. The war has become a major political liability
for Trump ahead of November elections for Congress.
Published on March 22, 2026
