Kas happens in the Middle East as war continues

Ongoing fighting in the Middle East has seen Israel strike targets inside Iran, Syria and the Gulf region, regional officials reported on Friday.

The latest Israeli air strikes targeted the Nuro region of Iran bordering the Caspian Sea, the Israel Defence Forces said, hours after reporting strikes on several Iranian navy vessels in the same waters. Israel said the actions followed attacks on Druze communities in southern Syria.

Syria’s president, Ahmed al Sharaa, said his country remained at peace with neighbours and would not be drawn into wider conflict. “Syria has lived in harmony with all regional neighbours for the past 15 years,” he told reporters.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, warned London that any use of British bases by the United States would be treated as British participation in aggression. The warning came during a telephone call with his UK counterpart, though no date was given.

Oil markets reacted to reports that Israel would no longer target Iranian energy infrastructure, sending crude prices lower.

In the Gulf, drone strikes on Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi refinery caused fires but no casualties, Kuwait’s state news agency said. Saudi Arabia said its air defences intercepted more than ten drones in the east and another in the north. Bahrain reported a warehouse fire caused by debris from what it called Iranian aggression, but said it was quickly contained.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said one of its spokesmen, Ali Mohammadi Naini, was killed in US-Israeli strikes. Earlier, Naini had dismissed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Iran could no longer produce ballistic missiles.

The United Arab Emirates said it had arrested at least five people suspected of links to a terror network tied to Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, accusing them of plotting to infiltrate the national economy.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, urged followers to deprive the country’s enemies of security in response to the killing of Iran’s intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, in an Israeli strike.