Giant oil tanker carrying 2m barrels hit by Iranian strike off Dubai

Iran attacked and set ablaze a fully loaded crude oil tanker off Dubai early on Tuesday, after President Donald Trump warned the United States would obliterate Iran’s energy plants and oil wells if it does not open the Strait of Hormuz.

The strike on the Kuwait-flagged Al-Salmi is the latest attack on merchant vessels by missiles or explosive air and sea drones in the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz since the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February.

The month-long conflict has spread across the Middle East, killing thousands, disrupting energy supplies and threatening to send the global economy into a tailspin

Crude oil prices briefly spiked again after the attack on the tanker, which can carry around 2 million barrels of oil worth more than USD 200 million at current prices.

Kuwait Petroleum Corp, the ship’s owner, said the attack happened early on Tuesday, causing a fire and hull damage.

Authorities in Dubai later said they had brought the fire under control following a drone attack on the tanker with no oil leak and no injuries to the crew.

The jump in oil and fuel prices has started to weigh on US household finances and become a political headache for Trump and his Republican Party before November midterm elections, having vowed to lower energy prices and increase US oil and gas production.

The US national average retail price of gasoline crossed USD 4 a gallon for the first time in over three years on Monday, data from price-tracking service GasBuddy showed.

Tightening global supplies have pushed benchmark Brent crude up 56 per cent this month, the largest rise on record, to above USD 113 a barrel.

Troops deploy as talks continue Attacks by both sides show no signs of easing, with fears of a wider regional conflict growing.

Iran-aligned Houthis have entered the war by firing missiles and drones at Israel and Turkey reported a ballistic missile launched from Iran had entered Turkish airspace before being shot down by NATO air and missile defenses.

Israel has been carrying out missile strikes on what it called military infrastructure in Tehran and infrastructure used by Iran-backed Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Sounds of explosions were heard in parts of eastern and western Tehran minutes after Israel issued a warning of imminent strikes in the city, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported on Tuesday.

Residents in the eastern Pirouzi district reported power outages after the blasts, and officials from Iran’s Energy Ministry began efforts to restore power, Tasnim said.

A strike on a Shi’ite congregation hall in the northwestern Iranian city of Zanjan on Tuesday killed three people and injuring 12, a provincial official told Iranian media.

The Israeli military said early on Tuesday that four soldiers had been killed in ?southern Lebanon, the ?same area as where three United Nations peacekeepers from Indonesia have been killed, in two separate incidents.

Iran’s military spokesman said on state television that targets in its latest missile and drone attacks included “hideouts” of US military personnel in five bases in the region and in Israel.

Thousands of soldiers from the US Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division have started arriving in the Middle East, two US officials told Reuters on Monday, part of reinforcements that would expand Trump’s options to include a ground assault in Iran, even as he pursues talks with Tehran.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump wanted to reach a deal with Iranian leaders before a second deadline, now 6 April, for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that normally carries about a fifth of global oil ?and liquefied natural gas supplies.

Leavitt said talks with Iran were progressing, and that what Tehran says publicly differs from what it tells US officials in private.

Iran says it has received US peace proposals via intermediaries, following weekend talks between the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the proposals were “unrealistic, illogical and excessive”.

He said the US would obliterate power plants, oil wells and Kharg Island, from where Iran exports much of its oil, if a deal is not reached soon and the strait is not opened.

However, the Wall Street Journal reported Trump had told aides he is willing to end the military campaign even if the strait remains largely closed and leave a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.

That ?helped oil prices retreat and lifted stock markets off their lows as investors hoped for some way for hostilities to end swiftly.

Asked about the report, the White House referred to comments made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who told Al Jazeera the strait would be open “one way or another” after the US military operation.

The White House said Trump was considering asking Arab nations to pay for the cost of the war.

His administration requested an additional USD 200 billion in funding for the war. The request faces stiff opposition in the US Congress which must approve new spending.