DUBAI: Iran fired missiles and drones at targets across the Gulf, including oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and a ship off the coast of the Emirates, while Israel and the United States struck targets across the Islamic Republic. Saudi Arabia and other states said they intercepted multiple drone attacks.
Six members of the Iranian women's soccer team will remain in Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Wednesday, while one of the squad members who was previously granted asylum changed her mind and planned to return to Iran.
US President Donald Trump said in social media posts that there were no reports of Iran planting explosives in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of the world's oil is shipped. The US said it took out more than a dozen minelaying Iranian vessels on Tuesday to help prevent any attempt to close the waterway.
Iran's vow not to allow any oil through the strategic strait has led to market volatility and fears of shortages, especially in Asia, which is dependent on oil shipped from the region.
Israel struck a building in the centre of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, as part of its campaign against Hezbollah. The Lebanese group has been carrying out attacks against Israel in support of Iran.
The Iranian women's soccer team is in a hotel in Malaysia awaiting travel arrangements to return home, officials said Wednesday.
Iran's embassy in Malaysia confirmed the squad members landed in the capital Kuala Lumpur early on Wednesday and are expected to depart when flights are available, and Iran's airspace reopens, according to the Bernama news agency.
“They want to return home,” the embassy told Bernama.
The Asian Football Confederation said the team is staying at a Kuala Lumpur hotel in the meantime and will receive support from the confederation until their travel arrangements are confirmed, a spokesperson said.
Six women from the Iranian squad will remain in Australia on humanitarian visas after accepting offers of asylum shortly before their scheduled return home.
Some tankers, believed to be linked to Iran, are continuing to get through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.
Some of the ships getting through are so-called “dark” transits, meaning they aren't turning on their Automatic Identification System tracks, which show where vessels are.
Vessels carrying sanctioned Iranian crude often turn off their AIS trackers.
The security firm Neptune P2P Group said Wednesday that seven ships had passed through the strait since March 8. Of those, five were linked to Iranian-associated shipping, it said.
The commodity-tracking firm Kpler said Iran has restarted crude exports through its Jask oil terminal on the Gulf of Oman.
A tanker loaded roughly 2 million barrels at Jask on March 7, the firm said.
Qatar says it won't serve as a mediator for Iran as it remains under attack from Tehran.
Mohammed bin Abdulaziz al-Khulaifi, Qatar's minister of state for foreign affairs, made the statement to the Qatari-funded satellite news network Al Jazeera in an interview aired Wednesday.
He noted both Qatar and Oman had been attacked even though they worked to “build bridges between Iran and the West.”
“We will not be able to fulfil that role under attack, and that's something the Iranians need to understand,” al-Khulaifi said. "The regional countries are not enemies of Iran, and the Iranians are not understanding that idea.”
Russia said its consulate in the Iranian city of Isfahan was damaged in airstrikes targeting the central Iranian city.
The state-run Tass news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying there were “no casualties or serious injuries” in the strike Sunday, which targeted the nearby governor's office in the city.
“Windows were shattered in the office building and residential apartments, and several employees were thrown back by the blast wave. Fortunately, there were no casualties or serious injuries,” Zakharova said.
Videos circulating online and broadcast by local news channels from an apparent strike site in the densely populated Aicha Bakkar area of central Beirut show two floors of a multistory building engulfed in flames.
The strike came without warning. There were no immediate reports concerning who was targeted or the number and extent of casualties.
The structure that was hit is several buildings away from Dar al-Fatwa, the country's highest Sunni Muslim religious authority.
The strike was in an area far from Beirut's southern suburbs, where the Israeli military had issued evacuation warnings earlier in the renewed conflict with Hezbollah.
Saudi Arabia's Defence Ministry said early Wednesday it destroyed five drones heading toward the kingdom's vast Shaybah oil field in the Empty Quarter desert. It added that it intercepted and destroyed two drones in the Eastern Province.
Kuwait said it downed eight drones over the tiny, oil-rich nation.
Two more members of the Iranian women's soccer team were granted asylum in Australia before their teammates departed the country, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Wednesday, but one of the women changed her mind and plans to return to Iran.
Six women from the Iranian squad will remain in Australia on humanitarian visas after accepting offers of asylum shortly before their scheduled return home, Burke said. The names and photographs of the team members initially granted asylum have been widely published, including by Burke, and it was not immediately clear which of the women reversed her decision.
The rest of the team's departure from Sydney, Australia, happened late Tuesday during fraught and outraged protests at the delegation's hotel and the airport. Iranian Australians sought to prevent the women from leaving the country, citing fears for their safety in Iran.
A projectile hit a container ship early Wednesday morning off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the Strait of Hormuz, the British military said.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre issued the warning, saying the attack happened off Ras al-Khaimah, the UAE's northernmost emirate on the strait.
The centre said the “extent of the damage is currently unknown but under investigation by the crew.”
Ships have effectively halted movement through the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded passes.