In Brief
- South Pars supplies around 80 per cent of Iran’s gas.
- Iran said the country's top intelligence official Esmail Khatib has been killed by Israel.
Iran's huge Pars gas field was hit overnight in a major escalation in the country's war with Israel and the United States that sent oil prices shooting higher.
In retaliation, Iran has struck a Qatari gas hub and fired missiles at Saudi Arabia after vowing attacks on oil and gas targets throughout the Gulf.
Qatar's state oil giant QatarEnergy reported "extensive damage" after the Ras Laffan Industrial City, an energy-industry hub, was hit by missiles on Thursday AEDT.
The escalation threatens to worsen an unprecedented disruption to global energy supplies that has raised the political stakes for US President Donald Trump.
Diesel prices in the US have already risen above $US5 ($7.10) a gallon for the first time since the 2022 inflation surge that eroded support for Trump's predecessor Joe Biden.
The conflict has already halted shipping from the world's most important energy-producing region and could now bring lasting damage to its infrastructure.
Benchmark Brent crude prices rose around 5 per cent to above US$108. Stock markets veered lower.
Israel reportedly strikes Iran's Pars gas field
The attack on Iran's Pars gas field was widely reported in Israeli media to have been carried out by Israel with US consent, though neither country acknowledged immediate responsibility.
Iran's Fars news agency reported that gas tanks and parts of a refinery had been hit. It said workers had been evacuated and state media later said the fire there was under control.
"We warn you once again that you made a big mistake in attacking the energy infrastructure of the Islamic Republic, the response to which is being implemented," Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in a statement carried by Iranian media.
"If it is repeated again, further attacks on your energy infrastructure and that of your allies will not stop until it is completely destroyed, and our response will be much more severe than tonight's attacks."
Pars is the Iranian sector of the world's largest natural gas deposit, which Iran shares with Qatar across the Gulf.
Following the attack, Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian warned of the risk of "uncontrollable consequences".
"This will complicate the situation and could have uncontrollable consequences, the scope of which could engulf the entire world," he said on X, adding that such attacks "will yield nothing" for Iran's foes the US and Israel.
Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf added in a separate post on X that after the attacks on energy facilities "an eye-for-an-eye sum is in effect, and a new level of confrontation has begun".
Iran listed an array of prominent regional oil and gas targets belonging to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, which it said were now "direct and legitimate targets" and should be evacuated at once before it struck them in the coming hours.
Qatar's Ras Laffan had been one of the sites Iran had directed its warnings towards, along with Mesaieed Petrochemical Complex and Mesaieed Holding Company. It also issued warnings to Saudi Arabia's Samref Refinery and Jubail Petrochemical Complex, and the UAE's Al Hosn Gas Field.
In the nearly three weeks since the war started, the US and Israel had mostly held back from targeting Iran's energy production facilities in the Gulf, averting Iranian retaliation against the oil and gas industries of its neighbours.
Iran has already effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, which handles 20 per cent of global oil and liquefied natural gas supply, but consuming nations are hoping the disruption will prove short-lived as long as production infrastructure is spared.
Israel says it has killed Iran's intelligence chief
Israel killed Iran's intelligence minister Esmail Khatib on Wednesday (local time), a day after killing powerful security chief Ali Larijani.
"No one in Iran has immunity and everyone is in the crosshairs," said Israeli defence minister Israel Katz.
He and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had authorised the Israeli military "to target any senior Iranian official for whom an intelligence and operational opportunity arises, without the need for additional approval", Katz said.
It appeared to be the first time Israel has publicly stated that it would let the military target enemy officials without seeking special permission from political leaders.
In Tehran, thousands of people appeared in the streets for a funeral for Larijani and other slain figures. The crowd waved Iranian flags and carried portraits of the dead as a eulogist sang: "Martyrs are leading the way, they've become more alive, burning with love."
Iran retaliated for the killing of Larijani by firing missiles at Israel, which Israeli authorities said killed two people near Tel Aviv. Tehran said it fired overnight on Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beersheba in Israel, and at US bases in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The Israeli military also hit central Beirut, destroying apartment buildings in some of the most intense airstrikes on the Lebanese capital for decades, on Israel's other front in the war it launched with the US against Iran.
US-based Iran human rights group HRANA said on Monday that an estimated 3,000-plus people had been killed in Iran since the US-Israeli attacks began on 28 February. Authorities in Lebanon say 900 people have been killed there and 800,000 forced to flee their homes.
Iran's retaliatory attacks have killed people in Iraq and across the Gulf states. Fourteen have been killed in Israel.
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