Extract from ABC News
Two tankers caught fire in Iraqi waters on Thursday, marking a possible intensification of Iranian attacks. (Reuters: Mohammed)
Hi, I'm ABC global affairs editor Laura Tingle, and I'm in Dubai.
This is the last of my daily updates. From Monday, ABC News Middle East correspondent Matt Doran will be taking over from Jerusalem.
Here's what you need to know today:
- Oil: The images of burning ships and oil are apocalyptic. The economic and geopolitical story is grim. Iran appears to have further tightened its grip on the world oil market — striking six ships in the past day or so as they sit, vulnerable, near the Tehran-controlled Strait of Hormuz. More oil supply lines are shutting down, with Iraq now shutting its oil ports. The International Energy Agency says it is the largest disruption to oil supplies in history. Iran is telling the world to get used to the idea of oil at $US200 a barrel.
- Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has finally broken his silence, almost five days after he was elected. Or has he? The successor to his father has still not been seen in public, and is said to have sustained wounds in the attack that killed most of his family. His first statement was not televised or audio-recorded, but rather read out on Iranian television. The good news was that he said Iran believes in friendship with its neighbours. The bad news was he said all US bases in the region should be immediately closed or would be attacked.
- Lebanon has become even more deadly: The Israeli military has nearly doubled the area of southern Lebanon that it says residents must leave, as well as ordering people out of a neighbourhood in central Beirut. Israel is effectively flagging that it will occupy at least 10 per cent of Lebanon's territory in what observers fear could be a land grab in the longer term. So far, official estimates are that about 600 people in Lebanon have been killed in the IDF attacks over the past two weeks. Central parts of Beirut were bombed on Thursday, as well as the southern suburbs, some of which are a Hezbollah stronghold. Hezbollah fired its largest barrage of missiles at Israel — 200, according to Israel, late on Wednesday. There were isolated reports of damage and several injuries to civilians, but no deaths.
What's the fallout?
Iran has increasingly been turning the war with the United States and Israel into an economic war based on oil. You will have seen the pictures on the news of burning oil refineries and oil tankers across the Gulf. Countries from Kuwait to Iraq have had to wind back production because they are running out of storage space for their oil.
Scores of tankers are sitting on either side of the Strait of Hormuz, unable to move, and vulnerable to Iranian attack. Unable to move, that is, unless they are carrying Iranian oil.
Iran's supreme leader said on Thursday the strait would remain closed, and a defence spokesman said no oil would pass through that could assist the United States or Israel.
Having provoked this situation, the United States has so far declined to help, with the US military reported to have turned down numerous requests from around the region to escort oil tankers or other civilian ships through the strait. Donald Trump has suggested that the US and its allies could provide military escorts to ships crossing the waterway "when the time comes".
Is there any other way of getting the 20 million barrels of oil a day that usually flows out of the Gulf to global customers? Well, yes, there is one way to get at least some oil out.
In the 1980s, Saudi Arabia built a 1,200 km-long pipeline — the East West Pipeline — across the width of the Arabian Peninsula to carry oil that would normally be exported via the Gulf to the Red Sea.
The Financial Times reports that a "flotilla of supertankers is steaming towards Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast as the kingdom rushes to reroute oil exports trapped in the Gulf by the Iran war".
"About 30 so-called very large crude carriers, each capable of carrying more than 2 million barrels of oil, are heading to the kingdom's western port of Yanbu over the coming days, according to ship-brokers, compared with a long-term average of about two a month."
But the new route carries its own dangers, the FT notes. "To enter the Red Sea from the south, the tankers will need to brave the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, where ships have been struck in recent years by Yemen's Houthi militants — and which is also within range of some Iranian missiles."
If you have one more minute, try this …
- Black rain: ABC correspondent Bridget Rollason reports on the acidic rain reported to be falling on Tehran in the wake of Israeli attacks on Iranian oil depots. Residents are being warned to stay indoors due to a risk of skin burns and lung damage. Watch the video ▶️ (1m13s).
And here's how to stay up to date:
You can keep track of the latest updates from Iran and around the world throughout the day via our live blog.
Thanks for joining me. Matt will be with you at the same time on Monday.
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