Middle East latest: Oil over $100 a barrel as Iran names ex-supreme leader’s son to succeed

Flames and smoke rise from an oil storage facility in Tehran, Iran (Alireza Sotakbar/ISNA via AP)

What happened overnight

• Iran has named Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his slain father, Ali Khamenei, as supreme leader, signalling that hardliners remain in charge.
• Fresh missile and drone strikes by Israel and Iran reverberated across the Middle East as the war entered its 10th day. The Israeli military said on Monday it had begun a wave of attacks in central Iran and had struck Hezbollah infrastructure in Beirut.
• The war has sent oil prices surging and Asian stock markets into a nosedive. Global oil prices rose past $100 (€86) a barrel for the first time since 2022 as fallout from the war continues to wipe 20m barrels of oil from the market each day.
• Pope Leo warned of “a tragedy of enormous proportions” due to the “widespread climate of hatred and fear” in Iran and across the region.
• Iran and its proxies appeared to have launched attacks across the region. Those included reports of strikes targeting a US diplomatic facility near Baghdad’s international airport but being intercepted, a drone interception east of Saudi Arabia’s northern Jawf region, and thick smoke seen rising from the direction of the Bapco oil refinery in Bahrain, with the company declaring force majeure.
• Trump said that when to end the war would be a “mutual” decision he would make with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Times of Israel reported.
• The US military reported a seventh American had died from wounds sustained during Iran’s initial counterattack. The Israeli military said two of its soldiers had been killed in southern Lebanon. The US-Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians and wounded thousands, according to Iran’s UN ambassador.
  

Iran has named Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of its late supreme leader, as its next ruler, putting a hard-line cleric in charge as the war spreading across the Middle East sent oil prices skyrocketing with the Islamic Republic launching new attacks on regional energy infrastructure.

With Iran’s theocracy under assault by the United States and Israel for more than a week, the country’s Assembly of Experts chose the secretive, 56-year-old cleric with close ties to the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as the new supreme leader.

The Revolutionary Guard has been firing missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf Arab states since the younger Khamenei’s father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed on February 28 during the war’s opening salvo.

Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz has also all but stopped tankers from using the shipping lane between the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman through which a fifth of the world’s oil is carried.

Brent crude oil, the international standard, surged to more than 114 dollars a barrel on Monday, about 60% higher than when the war started.

As global economic concerns grew, US President Donald Trump downplayed the spike in prices as temporary.

“Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace,” Mr Trump wrote on social media.

Iran has been firing on Israel and American bases in the region since the start of the war, but has also been launching missiles and drones at energy and water infrastructure.

On Monday, a fire broke out at an oil facility that was attacked in Fujairah, in the United Arab Emirates. Bahrain’s only oil refinery was apparently also hit and Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted several drones attacking its Shaybah oil field.

Mojtaba Khamenei has been named as the Islamic Republic’s next ruler (Iran state TV/AP)

Israel, meantime, claimed strikes on targets in Iran’s city of Isfahan, saying it had hit command centres for the Revolutionary Guard and its volunteer Basij force there, as well as a rocket engine production facility and missile launch sites.

The younger Khamenei, who had not been seen or heard from publicly since the war started, had long been considered a potential successor – even before the Israeli strike killed his father and despite never being elected or appointed to a government position.

There appeared to be some dissension over his selection. Political figures within Iran have criticised the idea of handing over the supreme leader’s title based on heredity and thereby creating a clerical version of the rule of the shah, who was toppled during the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

But top clerics in the Assembly of Experts likely wanted Mr Khamenei to prosecute the war.

Mr Khamenei, who is believed to hold views that are even more hard-line than his late father, now will be in charge of Iran’s armed forces and any decision regarding Tehran’s nuclear programme.

While the country’s key nuclear sites are in tatters after the US bombed them during the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June, there’s still highly enriched uranium in Iran that is a technical step away from weapons-grade levels. Mr Khamenei could choose to do what his father never did – build a nuclear bomb.

Two women from the Iranian Red Crescent Society stand near a thick plume of smoke from a US-Israeli strike on an oil storage facility in Tehran, Iran (Vahid Salemi/AP)

Israel has already described him as a potential target, while Mr Trump had called him “unacceptable”.

“We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,” Mr Trump had said.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard issued a statement expressing support, as did the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Top Iranian security official Ali Larijani, speaking to Iranian state television, praised the Assembly of Experts for “courageously” convening even as air strikes continued in Tehran. He said the younger Khamenei had been trained by his father and “can handle this situation”.

Saudi Arabia lashed out at Iran following a thwarted drone attack on its massive Shaybah oil field, saying Tehran would be the “biggest loser” if it continues to attack Arab states.

The Foreign Ministry said Iranian attacks mean “further escalation which will have a grave impact on the relations, currently and in the future”.

(PA Graphics)

In addition to targeting energy facilities also in the UAE, Iran on Monday also attacked Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, where it hit a residential area wounding 32 people, including several children, according to authorities.

Another attack appeared to have started a fire at Bahrain’s only oil refinery, sending thick plumes of smoke into the air, with online video purportedly showing the blaze. Bahrain’s government did not immediately identify the refinery itself as being hit, though it has been a target of repeated Iranian attacks since the war began.

Bahrain has also accused Iran of damaging one of its desalination plants, though its electricity and water authority said supplies remained online. Desalination plants supply water to millions of residents in the region and thousands of stranded travellers, raising new fears of catastrophic risks in parched desert nations.

On Monday, the island kingdom’s state oil company declared force majeure for its oil shipments, state-run Bahrain News Agency reported, a legal move that releases a company of its contractual obligations because of extraordinary circumstances. It insisted that local demand could still be met.

In Iraq, air defences shot down a drone as it attacked a US military compound inside the Baghdad International Airport, a security source told the AP.

There were no reported injuries or damage and it was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, but Pro-Iranian Iraqi militias have previously targeted the base.

Elsewhere, the US military had said a service member died of injuries from an Iranian attack on troops in Saudi Arabia on March 1. Seven US soldiers have now been killed.

Mourners carry the bodies of Hezbollah fighters who were killed by Israeli air strikes during their funeral procession in Lebanon (Bilal Hussein/AP)

The US State Department on Monday ordered non-essential personnel and families of all staff to leave Saudi Arabia following the escalation in attacks.

Eight other US diplomatic missions have ordered all but key staff to leave: Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the consulate in Karachi, Pakistan.

The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, at least 397 in Lebanon and at least 11 in Israel, according to officials. Israel reported its first soldier deaths on Sunday, saying two were killed in southern Lebanon, where its military is fighting Hezbollah.

-Additional reporting from the Guardian