Iran threatens escalation, U.S. puts oil hub in crosshairs

Gulf countries reported fresh cross-border attacks on Sunday, a day after Iran urged civilians to evacuate three major ports in the United Arab Emirates that it labeled "legitimate targets" being used by U.S. military forces for strikes against Iran. 

As the three-week-old conflict between Iran, the United States and Israel shows no sign of de-escalation, Washington has sharply raised the stakes by targeting Iran's most critical oil export lifeline.

In recent days, the U.S. has carried out strikes on more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg Island — the strategic chokepoint handling roughly 90 percent of Iran's crude oil exports — marking a dangerous new phase of the escalating conflict.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that no specific initiative has been proposed to end the war so far. "The end of the war depends on guaranteeing that it will not be repeated and on paying compensation," he said in an interview with Al Araby Al Jadeed.

He said earlier that the U.S. attacked Kharg Island and Abu Musa Island from two locations in the UAE: Ras Al-Khaimah and a site "very close to Dubai". He called the situation extremely dangerous and said Iran would exercise restraint to avoid striking civilian-populated areas in the UAE.

Behind the scenes, resentment has already been mounting in Gulf Arab states at being drawn into a war they neither initiated nor endorsed, but are now bearing economic and security costs for, sources told Reuters.

Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the president of the UAE, said on social media late on Saturday that his country has the right to defend itself but "still prioritizes reason and de-escalation, and continues to exercise restraint".

The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain all alerted residents that they were working to intercept incoming projectiles. In a statement, Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), said they launched 10 missiles and an unidentified number of drones against U.S. forces at the UAE's al-Dhafra airbase.

But there was no sign of an attack on Dubai's Jebel Ali port — the Middle East's busiest — or Abu Dhabi's Khalifa port. Debris from an intercepted Iranian drone struck an oil facility at Fujairah port, the third targeted hub, with TV footage showing plumes of thick black smoke rising into the air. Authorities said civil defense teams were working to manage the situation and urged the public not to spread misinformation, advising reliance solely on official updates.

Kharg, a small coral island around 30 kilometers off the south-western coast, is where petroleum from Iran's oilfields arrives through undersea pipelines to be loaded on to tankers. Oil exports from the island were continuing normally despite the U.S. attack, Ehsan Jahanian, deputy governor of Bushehr Province, was quoted by the IRNA news agency as saying.

U.S. President Donald Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News that the U.S. is not ready to strike a deal with Iran because "the terms are not good enough". He added that initial attacks "completely demolished" most of the island and that "we may hit it a few more times just for good measure".

Meanwhile, Iran's joint military command accused "the enemy" — the U.S. and Israel — of using replica Iranian drones to attack neighboring countries and shift blame to Tehran, state media reported on Sunday.

The statement said copies of Iran's Shahed-136 drone, designated LUCAS, were used to hit "unrelated targets in regional states", including attacks in Turkiye, Iraq and Kuwait. No evidence was provided to support the claim.

In another development, the IRGC vowed on Sunday to hunt down Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a statement carried by state media, the IRGC said: "If this criminal, the killer of children, remains alive, we will spare no effort to track down and eliminate him with all our strength."

Since the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran on Feb 28, more than 2,000 people have been killed, the majority in Iran, while major disruption has been caused to global oil supplies, pushing international prices higher.