By Andrew Mills and Timour Azhari
DOHA/RIYADH, March 19 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said an angry Israel had “violently lashed out” and attacked Iran’s major gas field, a significant escalation in the U.S.-Israeli war, but said Israel would not make further such attacks unless Iran retaliated.
Wednesday’s attack on the huge South Pars gas field drove oil prices higher and prompted a threat by Iran to attack oil and gas targets across the Gulf, while it fired missiles at Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
The escalation heightens the unprecedented disruption of global energy supplies that has raised the political stakes for Trump, who joined Israel in attacking Iran nearly four weeks ago.
State oil giant QatarEnergy reported “extensive damage” after hit the Ras Laffan Industrial City that processes about a fifth of global gas supply.
IRAN HITS MASSIVE QATAR OIL FIELD, SAUDI CAPITAL
Saudi Arabia said it intercepted and destroyed four ballistic missiles launched toward Riyadh on Wednesday and an attempted drone attack on a gas facility in its east.
On Thursday, Iran again attacked Qatar’s gas facilities, and its missiles also targeted the Saudi capital.
QatarEnergy reported “sizeable fires” and extensive damage at several of its liquefied natural gas facilities hit by missile attacks early on Thursday.
Trump said the United States did not have advance knowledge of Israel’s attack and that Qatar had not been involved. The Wall Street Journal, however, reported that Trump had approved of Israel’s plan to attack Iran’s natural gas field.
“Israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East, has violently lashed out at a major facility known as South Pars Gas Field in Iran,” Trump posted on X on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, Iran did not know this, or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the South Pars attack, and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar’s LNG Gas facility.
“NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar.
“In which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before.”
TRUMP CONSIDERS SENDING MORE TROOPS TO MIDDLE EAST
South Pars is the Iranian sector of the world’s largest natural gas deposit, which Iran shares with Qatar, a close U.S. ally and host of the United States’ biggest military base in the Gulf.
Since the start of the conflict, Tehran has targeted not just Israel, but U.S. diplomatic and military facilities across the Gulf and warned its neighbors not to host attacks on Iran.
With no sign of de-escalation, Trump is considering sending thousands more U.S. troops to the Middle East, a U.S. official and three other people familiar with the planning told Reuters.
Those troops could be used to restore the safe passage of oil tankers through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for a fifth of the world’s oil trade.
Trump this week asked U.S. allies to help reopen the strait, but his request has so far been rebuffed. Iran’s closure of the strait has spiked energy prices and fueled fears of a rise in inflation globally.
An unknown projectile hit a vessel 4 nautical miles east of Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG facility, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said on Thursday. All crew were reported safe, it said.
The foreign ministers of 12 Muslim-majority countries meeting in Riyadh denounced Iran’s strikes on Gulf neighbors, calling for an immediate halt.
Iran’s targeting of residential areas and civilian infrastructure, such as oil facilities, airports and desalination plants, could not be justified under any circumstances, the ministers said in a statement.
“This pressure from Iran will backfire politically and morally and certainly we reserve the right to take military actions, if deemed necessary,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told a press conference after the diplomats met.
Interceptors were seen fired from near the Riyadh hotel where the conference was held around the time the ministers gathered for the consultative meeting on the Iran war.
SAUDI PORT HIT, UAE SHUTS GAS FACILITY
Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Yanbu – currently the only export outlet for Gulf Arab countries’ crude – was hit by an aerial attack on Thursday, an industry source said, adding there was minimal impact. It was unclear what was targeted and by whom. Aramco did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Thursday issued an evacuation warning to several oil facilities across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, including SAMREF, a joint venture between Aramco and Exxon Mobil.
The UAE shut down its Habshan gas facility after it intercepted missiles fired in what its foreign ministry called a “terrorist attack” by Iran.
European Union leaders will seek ways to curb the jump in energy prices triggered by the Iran war when they meet on Thursday but they have few easy options. European gas prices have increased by more than 60% since the war on Iran began on February 28.
More than 3,000 people have been killed in Iran since the U.S.-Israeli attacks began, the U.S.-based Iran human rights group HRANA estimates.
Authorities in Lebanon say 900 have been killed there and 800,000 forced to flee their homes. Iranian attacks have killed people in Iraq and across the Gulf states, and at least 13 U.S. military service members have been killed in the war.
(Reporting by Andrew Mills in Doha and Timour Azhari in Riyadh; Additional reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Jonathan Allen and Michael Perry; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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