Gulf bases targeted as US hits Iran's oil hub

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" for use by US military forces in strikes against Iran.

As the conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel entered its third week with no signs of de-escalation, Washington has sharply raised the stakes by targeting Iran's most critical oil export lifeline.

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

Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that no specific initiative has been proposed to end the conflict.

"The end of the war depends on guaranteeing that it will not be repeated and on paying compensation," he said in an interview with news outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

Araghchi said earlier that the US attacked Kharg Island and Abu Musa Island from two locations in the UAE. 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 over being drawn into a war that they neither initiated nor endorsed, but are now bearing economic and security costs, 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".

Intercepting projectiles

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have all alerted residents that they were working to intercept incoming projectiles. In a statement, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said they launched 10 missiles and an unidentified number of drones against US forces at the UAE's Al Dhafra air base.

However, there were no signs of an attack on Dubai's Jebel Ali Port — the busiest in the Middle East — 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 Iran's southwestern coast, is where petroleum from the country's oilfields arrives through undersea pipelines to be loaded onto tankers.

Oil exports from the island were continuing normally despite the US attack, Ehsan Jahanian, deputy governor of Bushehr Province, was quoted by Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency as saying.

In a phone call with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, Iran's Araghchi urged other countries to "refrain from any action that could lead to escalation and expansion of the conflict", according to an Iranian foreign ministry statement.

His remarks came after Washington called for warships from other nations to help protect world oil supplies passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been virtually blocked by the threat of Iranian attacks.

US President Donald Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News that Washington is not ready to strike a deal with Iran because "the terms are not good enough".

The initial attacks "completely demolished" most of the Kharg Island, he said. "We may hit it a few more times just for good measure."

Meanwhile, Iran's joint military command accused "the enemy" — the US 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.

Araghchi also told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that Tehran has information that the US and Israel are launching attacks from certain locations against Arab states in the West Asia region, questioning the origin of attacks on them that have been blamed on Iran.

In another development, the Revolutionary Guards vowed on Sunday to hunt down Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"If this criminal, the killer of children, remains alive, we will spare no effort to track down and eliminate him with all our strength," the Guards said in a statement.

Agencies contributed to this story.

cuihaipei@chinadaily.com.cn