Iran Defiantly Continues Missile Production Amid U.S.-Israeli Strikes
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran defiantly insisted Friday that it would deny its enemies their security and that it was still building missiles nearly three weeks into U.S.-Israeli strikes that have killed a slew of Tehran’s top leaders and hammered its weapons and energy industries.
Iran Remains Defiant Despite Weeks of Attacks
U.S. and Israeli leaders have claimed that weeks of strikes have decimated Iran’s military capabilities. Airstrikes have killed Iran’s supreme leader, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and numerous other high-ranking military and political figures.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that Iran’s navy was sunk and its air force was in tatters, while adding that its ability to produce ballistic missiles had been eliminated. However, the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard contradicted this in comments released Friday, insisting that missile production continues.
“We are producing missiles even during war conditions, which is amazing, and there is no particular problem in stockpiling,” spokesman Gen. Ali Mohammad Naeini was quoted as saying in Iran’s state-run IRAN newspaper.
Naeini added that Iran had no intention of seeking a quick end to the war. “These people expect the war to continue until the enemy is completely exhausted,” he said.
Underscoring the tremendous pressure Iran’s leadership is under, a short time after the statement was released, Iranian state television reported that Naeini was killed in an airstrike.
Leadership and Security Concerns
The country’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei also released a rare statement, declaring that Iran’s enemies need to have their “security” taken away. Khamenei hasn’t been seen since he succeeded his father, the 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the first day of the war.
With little information coming out of Iran, it remains unclear how much damage its arms, nuclear, or energy facilities have sustained since the conflict began on February 28, or even who is truly in charge of the country. However, Iran has demonstrated it is still capable of attacks that are choking off oil supplies and scrambling the global economy, raising food and fuel prices far beyond the Middle East.
Attacks on Energy Sites and Regional Impact
Iran has stepped up its attacks on energy sites in Gulf Arab states after Israel bombed Iran’s massive South Pars offshore natural gas field earlier in the week. Two waves of Iranian drones attacked a Kuwaiti oil refinery early Friday, sparking a fire. The Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, which can process approximately 730,000 barrels of oil per day, is one of the largest in the Middle East and was damaged Thursday in another Iranian attack.
Bahrain’s Interior Ministry reported a fire broke out after shrapnel from an intercepted projectile landed on a warehouse, while Saudi Arabia stated it shot down multiple drones targeting its oil-rich Eastern Province.
Heavy explosions shook Dubai as air defenses intercepted incoming fire over the city, where people were observing Eid al-Fitr, the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. In Iran, many were marking Nowruz, the Persian new year, even as Israel announced new strikes and explosions were heard over Tehran.
Loud explosions could also be heard in Jerusalem after the Israeli army warned of incoming Iranian missiles.
Expanding Conflict and Casualties
In addition to steadily striking Iran, Israel has regularly targeted Lebanon, hitting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. On Friday, it broadened its attacks to Syria, stating it hit infrastructure there in response to what it described as attacks on the minority Druze population in southern Sweida province. Syria’s state-run SANA news agency did not immediately acknowledge the attack.
More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran during the war. Israeli strikes in Lebanon have displaced over 1 million people, according to the Lebanese government, which reports more than 1,000 fatalities. Israel claims it has killed more than 500 Hezbollah militants.
In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missile fire. Four people were also killed in the occupied West Bank by an Iranian missile strike. At least 13 U.S. military members have lost their lives in the conflict.
Global Economic Risks
The war is raising significant risks to the world economy. Iran’s attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf, combined with its stranglehold on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz—a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and other critical goods are transported—have heightened concerns of a global energy crisis.
Brent crude oil, the international standard, has soared during the fighting, trading around $107 on Friday morning, up more than 47% since the start of the war.
Surging fuel prices come at a moment when many world leaders were already struggling to bring down high prices on food and consumer goods. Asia is being hit the hardest, as most of the oil and gas exiting the Strait of Hormuz is transported there.
However, the price shocks are reverberating throughout the global economy. Key raw materials—such as helium used in making computer chips and sulfur, a raw material in fertilizer—have been obstructed and could soon be in short supply, raising prices of goods all the way down the supply chain.
The U.S. and Israel have outlined a wide range of objectives in the conflict, from hoping to foment an uprising that topples Iran’s leadership to eliminating its nuclear and missile programs. There have been no public signs of any such uprising, and it’s not clear what capabilities Iran retains, leaving it uncertain how or when the war will end.
