DUBAI: Israel's defence minister threatened a surge in attacks against Iran on Saturday, and Britain condemned Iran for targeting a joint UK-US base in the Indian Ocean as the war in the Middle East entered its fourth week.
The Iranian attack on the Diego Garcia air base — located about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometres) from Iran — suggested Tehran has in its stockpile missiles that can go far further than it had previously acknowledged.
Also on Saturday, Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facility was hit in an airstrike, an official Iranian news agency reported, saying there was no radiation leakage.
Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a video statement that next week, “the intensity of the attacks” by Israel and the United States against Iran's ruling theocracy will “increase significantly.”
He spoke shortly after fragments from an Iranian missile slammed into an empty kindergarten near Tel Aviv. Israeli army spokesman Nadav Shoshani posted a video on X of the kindergarten building; no casualties were reported as the place was empty at the time.
Overnight and into the morning, Tehran, Iran's capital, saw heavy airstrikes, residents said. In Iraq, a drone struck the intelligence service headquarters in Baghdad, killing an officer. No group immediately claimed responsibility for that attack.
Saudi Arabia said it downed 20 drones in just a couple of hours in the country's eastern region, home to major oil installations. No injuries or damage were reported.
The attacks — and threats of more to come — indicate the Iran war shows no sign of abating. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Japan's Kyodo news service on Friday that Iran wanted “not a cease-fire, but a complete, comprehensive and lasting end to the war.”
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he was considering “winding down” military operations in the Mideast even as the US was sending three more amphibious assault ships and roughly 2,500 additional Marines to the region.
Trump's post on social media followed an Iranian threat to attack recreational and tourist sites worldwide.
It also came after another climb in oil prices plunged the US stock market, and was followed by a Trump administration announcement that it was lifting sanctions on Iranian oil already loaded on ships, a move aimed at wrangling soaring fuel prices.
UK officials have not given details of the attempted strike on the ocean air base on Friday, which was unsuccessful.
Britain's Ministry of Defence said Saturday that Iran's “lashing out across the region and holding hostage the Strait of Hormuz " is a threat to British interests and British allies.
Britain has not participated in US-Israeli attacks on Iran, but has allowed American bombers to use UK bases to attack Iran's missile sites.
On Friday, the British government said US bombers can also use UK bases, including Diego Garcia, in operations to prevent Iran from attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran targeted the base before that UK statement.
Iran's official news agency, Mizan, said there was no leakage after Saturday's strike on the Natanz nuclear facility, nearly 220 kilometres (135 miles) southeast of Tehran.
The facility, Iran's main uranium enrichment site, was hit in the first week of the war, and several buildings appeared damaged, according to satellite images. The U.N. nuclear watchdog — the International Atomic Energy Agency — had said “no radiological consequence” was expected from that earlier strike. Natanz had also been targeted in the 12-day war last June.
On Saturday, the IAEA said on X that it was informed by Iran about the Natanz strike and about there being no increase in off-site radiation levels. The agency said it was looking into the incident.
The US and Israel have offered shifting rationales for the war, from hoping to foment an uprising that topples Iran's leadership to eliminating its nuclear and missile programmes. There have been no public signs of any such uprising, and no end to the war in sight.
On social media, Trump said, “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East.”
That seemed at odds with his administration's move to bolster its firepower in the region and request another USD 200 billion from Congress to fund the war.
The US is deploying three more amphibious assault ships and roughly 2,500 additional Marines to the Mideast, an official told The Associated Press. Two other US officials confirmed that ships were deploying, without saying where they were headed. All three spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the military operations.
Days earlier, the US redirected another group of amphibious assault ships carrying another 2,500 Marines from the Pacific to the Middle East. The Marines will join more than 50,000 US troops already in the region.
Trump has said he has no plans to send ground forces into Iran, but he has also asserted that he retains all options.
Iran's top military spokesperson, Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, warned Friday that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide will not be safe for the country's enemies.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei praised Iranians' steadfastness in the face of war in a written statement read on Iranian television to mark the Persian New Year, or Nowruz. Khamenei has not been seen in public since he became the supreme leader following Israeli strikes that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and reportedly wounded him.
With little information coming out of Iran, it was not clear how much damage its arms, nuclear or energy facilities had sustained in the punishing US and Israeli strikes, which began Feb. 28 — or even who was truly in charge of the country.
But Iran's attacks are still choking off oil supplies and raising food and fuel prices far beyond the Middle East.