Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Iran conflict
The Israel-Iran confrontation has entered a perilous new phase. Reported Israeli military attacks on Iran’s gas sites put energy targets in the crosshairs. Global energy markets might escape crisis this time, but the margin of safety is getting ever narrower.
An onshore site of Phase 14 of the South Pars gasfield, Iran’s largest, in the Gulf industrial city of Assaluyeh, was struck, causing an explosion and fire. Iranian news agency Tasnim reported that 12 million cubic metres of gas production a day was halted. The Fajr Jam gas processing plant, near Bushehr, suffered from apparent drone attacks. Phase 14 processes 18.3 billion cubic metres of gas a year and Fajr Jam 20 bcm; the reported damage to the two amounts to about a tenth of Iran’s gas output.
Israeli military attacks have also destroyed petrol depots near Tehran. Iran denied reports that the Tabriz refinery was damaged but the Shahr Rey oil refinery south of Tehran was reported to be on fire. In response, an Iranian missile was reported to have hit Israel’s Bazan oil refinery in the port of Haifa. As already seen in the Russia-Ukraine war, any taboo about attacking civil infrastructure is long gone.
Oil prices climbed by more than $7 per barrel on the initial news of the air strikes. European natural gas prices are up less than 5 per cent. No doubt they will rise again when markets re-open on Monday. But so far, this remains a moderate response. Crude prices are not yet back to the level on April 2, just before the announcement of US President Donald Trump’s massive tariffs and the increase in production by Opec+.
So far, Israel’s energy targets appear to be those that serve the domestic market: gas, petrol terminals and oil refineries. It is early summer, and not the peak winter demand season. Still, Iran was already struggling with serious gas and electricity shortages. Exports to Turkey may be affected, but Ankara is already familiar with the unreliability of Iranian supplies, and can increase imports from Russia or buy more liquefied natural gas. Iraq relies on Iranian gas, but it was already facing a cut-off as the US tightened pressure on Baghdad.
So far, Israel has stayed away from sites that directly serve the international market, notably the Kharg oil export terminal in the northern Gulf. This enables Israel to evade immediate responsibility for causing a worldwide energy crisis.
Iran’s oil exports, nearly all to China, are about 1.5 million barrels per day. If they were completely cut off, whether by a US blockade or direct Israeli strikes on Kharg and other oil sites, the volumes could quite easily be replaced by the spare capacity in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and elsewhere – assuming that Tehran does not retaliate, a risky assumption.
The crucial question is where things go from here. The stated Israeli goal of eliminating Iran’s nuclear programme appears unrealistic; it may be set back, but destruction is not feasible without American involvement. No doubt Israel hopes the US will be sucked in. Even then, the lesson of recent years – Ukraine and Libya contrasted to North Korea and Pakistan – is that those who give up their nuclear weapons are attacked with impunity by those who have them.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s other suggested goal, of toppling the Islamic Republic, is even less plausible. Yes, the regime of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is repressive and unpopular. Its incompetence in one area where it should be capable has been unmasked by Israel’s successes so far, first in severely mauling Hezbollah, then in striking the Iran homeland directly with impunity.
But Iranians have deep memories, personal or learnt, of the resistance to Saddam Hussein’s invasion, which also featured extensive bombing of urban areas. Neither democratic nor authoritarian regimes are overthrown by air campaigns alone.
Even a new leadership, perhaps a secular nationalist one, would now seriously have to consider acquiring nuclear weapons. The former Shah, ousted in the 1979 Revolution, himself said, “If small states began building them, Iran might have to reconsider its policy [of not acquiring nuclear weapons]”.
American diplomacy has been exposed as duplicitous or ineffectual or both. With China wisely sitting out and Russia untrustworthy and stuck in its own war, there is no honest broker at hand. So, it is hard to imagine Iranian diplomats sitting down seriously again to negotiate a halt to their nuclear programme. That would look like a surrender under duress similar to the reviled treaties of Turkmenchay and Golestan that gave up much of Iran’s territory to Russia in the early 19th century.
It seems much less likely that Tehran can do as it did in April last year, launching a few face-saving retaliations against Israel and then reaching a ceasefire. Top regime individuals have been killed, military and nuclear sites have suffered damage. Israel will not want to give a respite to Iran to rebuild air defences and harden crucial sites.
Iran does not seem to have the ability to launch a really devastating attack on Israel either, and if it did, it would be met with further reprisal and probably draw in the US. But Tehran also seems unwilling to sit idly by while it is pummelled.
This draws attention to energy targets elsewhere. Mr Trump is acutely sensitive to higher oil prices and inflation. About 20 million barrels of oil and products per day goes through the famous Strait of Hormuz. This includes virtually all the spare production capacity in the Opec+ countries, other than Russia.
Saudi Arabia can divert up to 5 million bpd to the Red Sea, though that brings its own problems. More than half of the UAE’s exports, or about 1.8 million bpd, go through a pipeline to Fujairah, outside the strait but still potentially vulnerable. Iraq is mostly friendly to Iran, but its 3.3 million barrels of exports through the Gulf could easily be interrupted by “accidents”.
Europe, having lost most Russian gas supplies, would be acutely worried about another interruption. About 82 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas, a fifth of global supply, came from the Gulf last year, mostly from Qatar. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, this crisis could bail out his troubled war economy, and bring political gains.
Simply-equipped Houthi troops have been able to shut down most shipping through the southern Red Sea, and have not been prevented by US naval escorts and missile strikes. Iran’s planned responses have probably been severely disrupted by the killing of so many of the top brass, but as war so often demonstrates, it is an error to underestimate your enemy forever.
Attacking energy sites or shipments could be one point of leverage for Tehran. It would be very risky. It would cut off its own oil exports, assuming they have not already been disrupted. It would anger China, which brokered the Iran-Saudi rapprochement in March 2023 with a major aim of safeguarding energy supplies. But the remaining Iranian regime may conclude that caution and restraint have not paid off for them so far, despite the calls for calm.
Robin M. Mills is chief executive of Qamar Energy, and author of The Myth of the Oil Crisis
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Company Profile
Founder: Omar Onsi
Launched: 2018
Employees: 35
Financing stage: Seed round ($12 million)
Investors: B&Y, Phoenician Funds, M1 Group, Shorooq Partners
Innotech Profile
Date started: 2013
Founder/CEO: Othman Al Mandhari
Based: Muscat, Oman
Sector: Additive manufacturing, 3D printing technologies
Size: 15 full-time employees
Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing
Investors: Oman Technology Fund from 2017 to 2019, exited through an agreement with a new investor to secure new funding that it under negotiation right now.
Profile of Tamatem
Date started: March 2013
Founder: Hussam Hammo
Based: Amman, Jordan
Employees: 55
Funding: $6m
Funders: Wamda Capital, Modern Electronics (part of Al Falaisah Group) and North Base Media
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2.45pm: Maiden Dh75,000 1,000m
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3.15pm: Handicap Dh105,000 1,200m
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3.45pm: Maiden Dh75,000 1,600m
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Yemen's Bahais and the charges they often face
The Baha'i faith was made known in Yemen in the 19th century, first introduced by an Iranian man named Ali Muhammad Al Shirazi, considered the Herald of the Baha'i faith in 1844.
The Baha'i faith has had a growing number of followers in recent years despite persecution in Yemen and Iran.
Today, some 2,000 Baha'is reside in Yemen, according to Insaf.
"The 24 defendants represented by the House of Justice, which has intelligence outfits from the uS and the UK working to carry out an espionage scheme in Yemen under the guise of religion.. aimed to impant and found the Bahai sect on Yemeni soil by bringing foreign Bahais from abroad and homing them in Yemen," the charge sheet said.
Baha'Ullah, the founder of the Bahai faith, was exiled by the Ottoman Empire in 1868 from Iran to what is now Israel. Now, the Bahai faith's highest governing body, known as the Universal House of Justice, is based in the Israeli city of Haifa, which the Bahais turn towards during prayer.
The Houthis cite this as collective "evidence" of Bahai "links" to Israel - which the Houthis consider their enemy.
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Important questions to consider
1. Where on the plane does my pet travel?
There are different types of travel available for pets:
- Manifest cargo
- Excess luggage in the hold
- Excess luggage in the cabin
Each option is safe. The feasibility of each option is based on the size and breed of your pet, the airline they are traveling on and country they are travelling to.
2. What is the difference between my pet traveling as manifest cargo or as excess luggage?
If traveling as manifest cargo, your pet is traveling in the front hold of the plane and can travel with or without you being on the same plane. The cost of your pets travel is based on volumetric weight, in other words, the size of their travel crate.
If traveling as excess luggage, your pet will be in the rear hold of the plane and must be traveling under the ticket of a human passenger. The cost of your pets travel is based on the actual (combined) weight of your pet in their crate.
3. What happens when my pet arrives in the country they are traveling to?
As soon as the flight arrives, your pet will be taken from the plane straight to the airport terminal.
If your pet is traveling as excess luggage, they will taken to the oversized luggage area in the arrival hall. Once you clear passport control, you will be able to collect them at the same time as your normal luggage. As you exit the airport via the ‘something to declare’ customs channel you will be asked to present your pets travel paperwork to the customs official and / or the vet on duty.
If your pet is traveling as manifest cargo, they will be taken to the Animal Reception Centre. There, their documentation will be reviewed by the staff of the ARC to ensure all is in order. At the same time, relevant customs formalities will be completed by staff based at the arriving airport.
4. How long does the travel paperwork and other travel preparations take?
This depends entirely on the location that your pet is traveling to. Your pet relocation compnay will provide you with an accurate timeline of how long the relevant preparations will take and at what point in the process the various steps must be taken.
In some cases they can get your pet ‘travel ready’ in a few days. In others it can be up to six months or more.
5. What vaccinations does my pet need to travel?
Regardless of where your pet is traveling, they will need certain vaccinations. The exact vaccinations they need are entirely dependent on the location they are traveling to. The one vaccination that is mandatory for every country your pet may travel to is a rabies vaccination.
Other vaccinations may also be necessary. These will be advised to you as relevant. In every situation, it is essential to keep your vaccinations current and to not miss a due date, even by one day. To do so could severely hinder your pets travel plans.
Source: Pawsome Pets UAE
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Bournemouth 0
Liverpool 4 (Salah 25', 48', 76', Cook 68' OG)
Man of the match: Andrew Robertson (Liverpool)
Top Hundred overseas picks
London Spirit: Kieron Pollard, Riley Meredith
Welsh Fire: Adam Zampa, David Miller, Naseem Shah
Manchester Originals: Andre Russell, Wanindu Hasaranga, Sean Abbott
Northern Superchargers: Dwayne Bravo, Wahab Riaz
Oval Invincibles: Sunil Narine, Rilee Rossouw
Trent Rockets: Colin Munro
Birmingham Phoenix: Matthew Wade, Kane Richardson
Southern Brave: Quinton de Kock
Match info:
Manchester City 2
Sterling (8'), Walker (52')
Newcastle United 1
Yedlin (30')
Schedule:
Sept 15: Bangladesh v Sri Lanka (Dubai)
Sept 16: Pakistan v Qualifier (Dubai)
Sept 17: Sri Lanka v Afghanistan (Abu Dhabi)
Sept 18: India v Qualifier (Dubai)
Sept 19: India v Pakistan (Dubai)
Sept 20: Bangladesh v Afghanistan (Abu Dhabi) Super Four
Sept 21: Group A Winner v Group B Runner-up (Dubai)
Sept 21: Group B Winner v Group A Runner-up (Abu Dhabi)
Sept 23: Group A Winner v Group A Runner-up (Dubai)
Sept 23: Group B Winner v Group B Runner-up (Abu Dhabi)
Sept 25: Group A Winner v Group B Winner (Dubai)
Sept 26: Group A Runner-up v Group B Runner-up (Abu Dhabi)
Sept 28: Final (Dubai)
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- Jinder Mahal won the United States title against Randy Orton, Rusev and Bobby Roode
- Charlotte retained the SmackDown Women’s title against Asuka
- Seth Rollins won the Intercontinental title against The Miz and Finn Balor
- Naomi won the first WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal
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Time in the UAE: 10 years
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