By Parisa Hafezi, Alexander Cornwell and Jana Choukeir
DUBAI/JERUSALEM/ANKARA, March 5 (Reuters) – Israel launched a large wave of strikes on Tehran on Thursday, targeting what it said was infrastructure belonging to the Iranian authorities, after Iranian missiles sent millions of Israelis rushing into bomb shelters.
As the U.S.–Iran war entered its sixth day, the conflict has widened beyond Gulf states and into Asia, convulsing global markets and prompting thousands of stranded tourists and residents to try to flee the Middle East.
Iran’s foreign minister called the sinking of an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka on Wednesday, which killed at least 80 people, an “atrocity at sea”.
REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS SAY IRAN CONTROLS STRAIT OF HORMUZ
He said the Iranian frigate Dena, a guest of the Indian navy with nearly 130 sailors on board, had been struck without warning in international waters, and warned that Washington would “bitterly regret” the precedent it had set.
“We have decided to fight Americans wherever they are,” General Kioumars Heydari, a commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told state TV, adding Iran did not care how long the war lasts.
Later on Thursday, the Revolutionary Guards said they had hit a U.S. tanker in the northern part of the Gulf and the vessel was on fire. The Guards said in the statement carried by state media that in time of war passage through the Strait of Hormuz would be under the control of the Islamic Republic.
NATO air defences destroyed an Iranian ballistic missile fired towards the country on Wednesday, Turkey said, marking the first time the alliance member bordering Asia has been drawn into the Middle East conflict and raising the possibility of a major expansion involving its bloc allies.
But the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff on Thursday denied it had fired missiles at Turkey, saying the Islamic Republic respected the sovereignty of “friendly” Turkey, according to a statement carried by Iranian media.
In Washington late on Wednesday, Republican senators blocked a motion aimed at stopping the U.S. air campaign against Iran and requiring that military action be authorized by Congress. That rejection leaves President Donald Trump’s power to direct the war largely unbound, as the conflict continues to widen across the Middle East and beyond.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz by telephone: “Keep going until the end – we’re with you”, according to a statement issued by Israel’s defence ministry on Thursday.
IMF SAYS CONFLICT TESTING GLOBAL ECONOMIC RESILIENCE
The repeated air attacks on Tehran have forced the postponement of the funeral for the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, killed by Israeli forces on Saturday in the first strikes of the war.
Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the slain supreme leader, has emerged as a frontrunner to succeed him, suggesting Tehran is not about to buckle to pressure from the U.S.-Israeli military campaign that has killed hundreds.
Asian shares rallied on Thursday after days of sharp losses, in line with a rebound in U.S. stocks on hopes the war might end soon. Some traders said the improved sentiment followed a New York Times report that Iranian intelligence had contacted the CIA early in the war about a path towards ending it.
But a source from the Iranian intelligence ministry rejected the article as “absolute lies and psychological warfare in the midst of war”, Iran’s semi-official news agency Tasnim reported.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the war was testing “global economic resilience”.
“This conflict, if proven to be prolonged, has obvious potential to affect global energy prices, market sentiment, growth and inflation. And it would place new demands on the shoulders of policy-makers everywhere,” she said at an event in Bangkok.
Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remained paralysed on Thursday, choking off vital Middle East oil and gas flows, and oil prices rose further. At least 200 vessels remain anchored off the coast, according to Reuters estimates.
Repatriation flights departed the Middle East on Wednesday as governments rushed to bring home tens of thousands of stranded citizens. But a British repatriation flight did not take off as scheduled from Oman and was rescheduled for later on Thursday, Sky News reported.
Commercial air traffic remained largely absent across much of the region, with major Gulf hubs including Dubai, the world’s busiest airport for international passengers, affected by widespread flight cancellations.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaus, Writing by Brad Brooks and Michael Perry; Editing by Stephen Coates and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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