Gulf states again under fire as Iran says still building missiles

2026.03.20 09:20 The fragment of a missile fired from Iran, and intercepted by Israel, sticks out in an open field in Israel-controlled Golan Heights. Photo: AP Firefighters battled a blaze at a giant oil refinery in Kuwait on Friday after a fresh drone attack as Iran kept up a wave of strikes on its neighbours and vowed there was “no concern” about its missile production. Despite calls for an end to targeting Gulf energy infrastructure by European leaders on Thursday, Kuwait reported a fire at its Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, a day after a direct hit on Qatar’s vital Ras Laffan facility. Iranian authorities had vowed to retaliate after an Israeli strike on Wednesday damaged its South Pars gas field, which draws on the world’s biggest known gas reserve and is vital for domestic supplies. The escalating damage to Gulf infrastructure has spiked oil and gas prices again and led to fears of lasting damage to global supplies, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated an end to the fighting could be close. Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery in Kuwait on Friday. Photo: AP “We are winning and Iran is being decimated,” the Israeli premier said at a press conference on Thursday, claiming Tehran no longer had the capacity to manufacture ballistic missiles. “This war is ending a lot faster than people think,” he added without providing a specific time frame. Iran’s leaders, despite an Israeli assassination campaign and three weeks of bombardment, have vowed to end the conflict on their own terms. “Our missile industry deserves a perfect score… and there is no concern in this regard, because even under wartime conditions we continue missile production,” Iran’s Revolutionary Guards spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency. Moments after his message was shared by the agency, the Revolutionary Guards said he had been killed in US-Israeli strikes. Naini “was martyred in the criminal cowardly terrorist attack by the American-Zionist side at dawn”

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