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Iran doubled down on threats against the United States on Thursday, vowing to make Washington regret its military campaign against the Islamic republic while maintaining a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz that has driven global oil prices up by as much as 50 percent since hostilities began.
The escalating confrontation, which has drawn in Israel, Lebanon, and Gulf states across the region, prompted the International Energy Agency to warn that the conflict could trigger the largest supply disruption the oil industry has ever seen. US President Donald Trump, facing mounting political pressure over the economic fallout, dismissed those concerns, writing on social media that defeating Iran's "evil empire" mattered more than crude prices.
Iran's security chief Ali Larijani struck a combative tone on the platform X, addressing Washington directly: "While starting a war is easy, it cannot be won with a few tweets. We will not relent until making you sorry for this grave miscalculation."
The defiance extended to the highest levels of the Iranian state. Mojtaba Khamenei, who assumed the role of supreme leader last Sunday following the death of his father Ali Khamenei in a strike, issued his first public remarks since taking power, though he has yet to appear in person. Reportedly wounded, the younger Khamenei had his statement calling for vengeance read by an anchor on state television.
He called explicitly for maintaining the Hormuz blockade, saying "the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must definitely be used." The waterway, situated off Iran's coast and just 54 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, ordinarily carries roughly a quarter of the world's seaborne oil trade and about a fifth of global liquefied natural gas supplies.
With Gulf states slashing production and tankers stuck in the Persian Gulf, benchmark crude prices have climbed 40 to 50 percent since the US and Israel launched their campaign against Iran on February 28.
The war's geographic footprint continued to widen on Thursday. Images from Bahrain showed thick smoke rising over Muharraq after a strike hit fuel storage tanks, with residents told to shelter indoors and seal their windows. Drones struck Kuwait's international airport and parts of downtown Dubai, while Saudi Arabia said it intercepted drones aimed at its Shaybah oil field and its embassy district.
Iran warned that it would "set the region's oil and gas on fire" if its own energy infrastructure and ports came under attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking in a televised briefing, said the joint US-Israeli campaign was "crushing" Iran and the Tehran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
He framed the war's objective in stark terms, saying it was intended "to create, for the Iranian people, the conditions to bring down this regime," in addition to dismantling Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities.
Iran rejected that characterization. Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi told AFP that Tehran was acting purely in self-defence and wanted to ensure war could not be "imposed" on it again. He confirmed that unnamed "friendly countries" had approached Iran about ending the conflict but said Tehran wanted any ceasefire tied to a broader formula for concluding the war altogether.
Inside Iran, the war has upended daily life. A 30-year-old woman in the western city of Kermanshah described a city where 90 percent of shops had shuttered and bread was being rationed. "People are desperately trying to withdraw their savings from the banks, as trust in them has vanished," she said. "The population is extremely tense and outraged."
Three million people have been displaced by the fighting in Iran, according to figures released Thursday by the UN refugee agency. Iran's health ministry reported on March 8 that more than 1,200 people had been killed, a figure AFP has not independently verified.
The conflict has also intensified in Lebanon, where authorities said 687 people had been killed by Israeli attacks.
At least 12 died Thursday in a strike on Beirut's seafront, where displaced families had set up tents. Israel's military said Hezbollah launched a barrage of 200 rockets and drones on Wednesday night in what it described as a simultaneous attack coordinated with Iran, and Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered troops to prepare for expanding operations in Lebanon. Israeli forces pushed deeper into the country's south.
Israel also carried out a new wave of strikes in Tehran, saying it had targeted checkpoints of the Basij paramilitary force, which has been deployed to suppress protests against the clerical government. A UN human rights expert said the world had entered a "new dark age of abuses," citing US attacks on both Iran and Venezuela.
Officials said 14 people had been killed in Israel since the start of the Iran war, while attacks across the Gulf have killed 24, including 11 civilians and seven US military personnel.
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