By Andrew Mills, Trevor Hunnicutt and Maayan Lubell
DOHA/WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM, March 20 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump told Israel not to repeat its attacks on Iranian natural gas infrastructure as tit-for-tat strikes on energy plants sent prices spiraling, sharply escalating the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
The conflict has killed thousands of people, spread to neighbouring nations and hit the global economy since the United States and Israel launched strikes on February 28, after talks about Tehran’s nuclear program failed to yield a deal.
Trump’s comment came as energy prices jumped on Thursday after Iran responded to an Israeli attack on a major gas field by hitting Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, which processes around a fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas, causing damage that will take years to repair.
Saudi Arabia’s main port on the Red Sea, where it has been able to divert some exports to avoid Iran’s closure of the Gulf’s exit point, the Strait of Hormuz, was also attacked.
The strikes underscored Iran’s continued ability to exact a heavy price for the U.S.-Israeli campaign, and the limits of air defences in protecting the Gulf’s most valuable and strategic energy assets.
Trump, politically vulnerable to rising fuel prices among his core voters ahead of November’s midterm elections, has lashed out at allies who have responded cautiously to his demands that they help secure the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for around a fifth of the world’s oil.
But he said he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to repeat the attack on energy infrastructure.
“I told him, ‘Don’t do that’, and he won’t do that,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday.
A U.S. official and three other people familiar with the planning told Reuters that Trump was considering sending thousands more U.S. troops to the Middle East.
But on Thursday, Trump said he had no plans to deploy ground forces. “I’m not putting troops anywhere,” he said.
Netanyahu later on Thursday said that Israel acted alone in the bombing of Iran’s South Pars gas field and confirmed that Trump asked Israel to hold off on such attacks.
Iran is being “decimated” and no longer has the capacity to enrich uranium or make ballistic missiles after 20 days of U.S.-Israeli air attacks, but a revolution in the country would not come from the air and would require a “ground component,” he said, without elaborating.
As the Israeli leader spoke, Iran launched a new wave of missiles toward his country, according to Israel’s military and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Israel’s military said late on Thursday that the Air Force had carried out over 130 strikes on targets in western and central Iran over the past day, including ballistic missile launchers, drones and air defense systems.
Separately, authorities in the United Arab Emirates said they had dismantled a “terrorist network” funded and operated by Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran.
ENERGY CRISIS ESCALATES
With no end in sight to the conflict, and the threat of a global “oil shock” growing by the day, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan issued a joint statement expressing “our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait”.
They also promised “other steps to stabilise energy markets, including working with certain producing nations to increase output”.
There was little indication of any immediate move. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz reiterated that any contribution to securing the strait would come only after hostilities ended.
The resistance by major U.S. allies to becoming involved in the war reflects scepticism over a conflict European leaders have said has unclear objectives that they did not seek and over which they have little control.
Israel’s bombing of Iran’s South Pars gas field, which Trump said the U.S. had not known about, suggested gaps in coordination of strategy and war aims between the main protagonists.
Adding to the confusion around the attack, three Israeli officials said the operation had taken place in consultation with the United States, but was unlikely to be repeated.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the House intelligence committee that U.S. and Israeli goals differed: “…the Israeli government has been focused on disabling the Iranian leadership. The president has stated that his objectives are to destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles launching capability, their ballistic missile production capability, and their navy.”
‘A NEW STAGE IN THE WAR’
Iran’s military said strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure had led to “a new stage in the war” in which it had attacked energy facilities linked to the United States.
“If strikes (on Iran’s energy facilities) happen again, further attacks on your energy infrastructure and that of your allies will not stop until it is completely destroyed,” Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaqari said, according to state media.
QatarEnergy’s CEO told Reuters the Iranian attacks had knocked out a sixth of Qatar’s LNG export capacity, worth $20 billion a year, and that repairs would take three to five years.
Israeli media reported that an Iranian strike hit oil facilities in Israel’s port of Haifa, causing damage but no casualties.
(Reporting by Andrew Mills in Doha and Timour Azhari in Riyadh; Additional reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Costas Pitas; Editing by Diane Craft)
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