THE NEW YORK TIMES: Iran escalates retaliatory strikes as US signals long battle

Iran broadened its retaliatory attacks on American targets in the Gulf region Monday and early Tuesday, as President Donald Trump and other top officials in his administration signalled that the US-Israeli strikes on Iran could intensify and continue for weeks or more.

As US and Israeli planes pounded targets in Iran on Monday, the fighting expanded into Lebanon, where the Iranian-allied militia Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel, prompting Israel to bombard the militia’s strongholds outside Beirut.

Early Tuesday, the Israeli military said it was attacking again in Iran and in Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah command centres and weapons storage facilities in the capital, Beirut.

Around the same time, the United Arab Emirates’ Defence Ministry said its air defences were “dealing with a barrage of ballistic missiles” from Iran. And within hours, the Saudi Defence Ministry said that US Embassy in Riyadh had been attacked by two drones, resulting in a “limited fire” and minor damage. The embassy was closed Tuesday.

In Washington on Monday, Trump offered an open-ended time frame for the US military campaign.

“Whatever the time is, it’s OK, whatever it takes,” he said, speaking at his first public event since the US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran began. “Right from the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that.” Later in the day on Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that “the hardest hits are yet to come from the US military.”

The New York Post reported that the president had said in an interview Monday: “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it.”

The Pentagon said Monday that the number of American service members killed in Iranian strikes had risen to six. And three American fighter jets were shot down by Kuwaiti air defences in what the US military called an “apparent friendly fire incident.” All six crew members from F-15s ejected safely and were recovered, the military said.

Iranian leaders remained defiant. The country’s top security official, Ali Larijani, denied news reports that Iran’s new leaders were seeking to negotiate with Washington, denouncing Trump for “delusional fantasies” and for plunging the Middle East “into chaos.” Iran, he said in a string of fiery social media posts Monday, “has prepared itself for a long war.”

A senior Revolutionary Guard official vowed Monday that “not a single drop of oil” would pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for about one-fifth of the world’s supply.

An adviser to the Revolutionary Guard commander said on Iranian state TV that Iran would “set on fire” any ships trying to transit the strait. Traffic there has already slowed to a trickle, after the Revolutionary Guard warned ships away over the weekend, but Iran had not directly threatened them.

In another sign of an expansion of attacks in the Middle East, Qatar’s Defence Ministry said its air force had shot down two Su-24 bombers coming from Iran. It was the first report that Iran, which has fired missiles and drones at its Gulf neighbours and Israel in retaliation for the Israeli-US assault, had also sent warplanes into their airspace.

Here’s what else is happening:

• Economic fallout: Oil and natural gas markets remained highly volatile as the fighting shut down shipping routes and damaged production facilities. Qatar’s state-owned energy company said that it would halt production of liquefied natural gas, cutting off a large share of the world’s supply of the fuel.
• Death toll: More than 550 people have been killed in Iran since the beginning of the war, the Iranian Red Crescent emergency service said Monday. The Lebanese Health Ministry said that at least 31 people had been killed in Israeli airstrikes. At least 10 people have been killed in Israel and six, including civilians, across the gulf since Saturday, according to the authorities.
• Persian Gulf: Iranian missiles and drone attacks led to explosions in Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and other countries where the US has military bases. Iranian leaders have said the attacks have targeted US assets, but they have also struck Dubai’s international airport, hotels and other civilian and economic infrastructure.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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