DUBAI: Israel and the United States pounded Iran in an escalating campaign that US President Donald Trump said Monday would likely take several weeks. Tehran and its allies hit back across the region, striking Israel and a variety of targets inside Gulf states, including energy facilities in Qatar and the American embassy in Saudi Arabia.
The intensity of the attacks, the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the lack of any apparent exit plan set the stage for a prolonged conflict with far-reaching consequences. Safe havens in the Mideast like Dubai have seen incoming fire; hundreds of thousands of airline passengers are stranded around the globe; energy prices shot up; and US allies pledged to help stop Iranian missiles and drones.
Saudi Arabia said early Tuesday that the US Embassy in Riyadh came under attack from two drones, which caused a “limited fire” and minor damage. A diplomatic quarter resident in the neighborhood of the embassy who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the security situation described light smoke coming from the embassy. On Monday, the US Embassy compound in Kuwait was struck.
With no sign of the conflict abating, Trump said operations are likely to last four to five weeks but that he was prepared “to go far longer than that.”
In a sign of concern over the potential for spiraling violence, the State Department on Monday urged US citizens to leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries due to safety risks.
“The hardest hits are yet to come from the US military,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters. “The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now.”
Trump said the military campaign's objectives are to destroy Iran's missile capabilities, wipe out its navy, prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensure that it cannot continue to support allied groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah, which fired missiles at Israel on Monday.
The chaos of the conflict became apparent when the US military said Kuwait had “mistakenly shot down” three American F-15E Strike Eagles while Iran was attacking with aircraft, ballistic missiles and drones. US Central Command said all six pilots ejected safely.
As several airstrikes hit Iran's capital, Tehran, the top security official Ali Larijani vowed on X: “We will not negotiate with the United States.”
World markets were rattled as the fighting expanded across a region vital to energy supplies.
Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura oil refinery came under attack from drones, but its defenses downed the incoming aircraft, a military spokesman told the state-run Saudi Press Agency. The refinery has a capacity of over half a million barrels of crude oil a day.
“The attack on Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura refinery marks a significant escalation, with Gulf energy infrastructure now squarely in Iran's sights,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt, an analyst at the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
After two of its facilities were struck, QatarEnergy said it would stop producing liquefied natural gas indefinitely, taking one of the world's top suppliers off the market. European natural gas prices surged by 40% in response.
Several ships have been attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded passes and where Iran has threatened attacks.
Reza Najafi, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters that airstrikes targeted the Natanz nuclear enrichment site on Sunday.
“Their justification that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons is simply a big lie,” he said.
Israel and the US have not acknowledged strikes at the site, which the US bombed in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June. Israel has said it is targeting the “leadership and nuclear infrastructure.”
Iran has said it has not enriched uranium since June, though it has maintained its right to do so while saying its nuclear program is peaceful.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said the US-Israeli operation has killed at least 555 people. In Israel, where several locations were hit by Iranian missiles, 11 people were killed. Israel's retaliatory strikes against Hezbollah killed dozens of people in Lebanon.
The US military announced that two previously unaccounted for American service members have been confirmed dead, bringing the total to six. All six were Army soldiers and part of the same logistics unit in Kuwait, according to a US official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Three people were reported killed in the United Arab Emirates, and one each in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Iran's top diplomat on Monday shared an aerial photo showing rows of graves that he said were for more than 160 girls killed during a U.S.-Israeli strike on an elementary school in Minab. “Their bodies were torn to shreds,” Abbas Araghchi, the country's foreign minister, said on X.
In Israel, three young siblings killed by an Iranian strike were being laid to rest at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem on Monday night. They were among the nine killed Sunday when a missile slammed into a shelter located in a synagogue in Beit Shemesh.
Hezbollah said it fired missiles on Israel early Monday in response to Khamenei's killing and “repeated Israeli aggressions.” It was the first time in more than a year the militant group has claimed an attack.
There were no reports of injuries or damage.
Israel retaliated with strikes on Lebanon. The country's Health Ministry reported at least 52 people were killed and 154 wounded in overnight strikes in the Beirut suburbs and southern Lebanon. Associated Press journalists in Beirut were jolted awake by loud explosions that shook buildings and shattered windows.
An Israeli military spokesman, Brig Gen Effie Defrin, said Israel is keeping “all options on the table,” including a potential ground invasion of Lebanon.
The Israeli military said it had completed a wave of strikes targeting branches of al-Qard al-Hasan, a charity operating outside the Lebanese financial system that Israel says is used to fund Hezbollah's military wing.
Israel also struck a building housing Al-Manar channel studios in Beirut's southern suburbs following an evacuation warning, the channel said. The military said it targeted “Hezbollah command centers and weapons storage facilities in Beirut.” No immediate details on casualties were available.
The US military, which has used B-2 stealth bombers to strike Iran's ballistic missile facilities with 2,000-pound bombs, said Monday that it had taken out 11 Iranian warships. Trump has said the Iranian navy's headquarters had been “largely destroyed.”
While Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, said the conflict would continue “as long as it takes,” Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Monday that the US is not engaged in a nation-building effort, saying, “This is not Iraq. This is not endless."
Trump sought to more clearly define the administration's objectives on Monday following an earlier statement — as the attack was unfolding Saturday — in which he listed various grievances dating to Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and urged Iranians to “take over” their government.
There have been no signs yet of any such uprising.
Trump has also signaled an openness to dialogue with Iran's new leadership, which could be chosen soon.