The Guardian80%
Middle East crisis live: Israeli officials push back on US claim that Trump knew nothing about gasfield attack 36%
By Tom Ambrose32% Taz Ali0% Hamish Mackay0% Adam Fulton0%
3/19/2026, 3:03:12 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Politically Left Leaning Bias, Appeal to Authority, and Framing Effect, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 6% saturation with 206 hits. Analysis detected 1,160 faulty-reasoning hits from 3,413 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 42.8% and a BS Rank of 36% (10,847 of 16,813 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 64.50% of the article peer group.
Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, said the US and Israel have different objectives in the war on Iran.
Her remarks follow an earlier statement by US defence secretary Pete Hegseth that Washington has its own objectives in the war while allies have theirs.
US officials are being quizzed on a statement made by Donald Trump that the US “knew nothing” about Israel’s attack on Iran’s South Pars gasfield yesterday.
Israeli sources have apparently told local media otherwise.
“The objectives that have been laid out by the president are different from the objectives that have been laid out by the Israeli government,” Gabbard told the intelligence committee in the House of Representatives.
“We can see through the operations that 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.”
The Israeli military said it had struck a number of Iranian naval vessels at a port in the Caspian Sea, including missile ships and patrol boats.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a port command centre was also hit in the operation yesterday.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier today that destroying Iran’s naval capabilities was one of the US’s top stated objectives in its military campaign.
Israeli attacks have killed 1,001 people in Lebanon since war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia group, on 2 March, the Lebanese health ministry said.
The death toll included 79 women, 118 children and 40 health workers, with 2,584 other people wounded, the ministry said in a statement.
India condemned strikes on energy facilities in the Gulf as “unacceptable”, warning they risk worsening global energy flows.
Iran’s attack on Qatar’s Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities has plunged oil and gas markets further into turmoil, including for India, which relies on the Gulf nation for about half of its LNG imports.
Global oil supplies have been effectively blocked from transiting the strait of Hormuz since Iran began attacking ships.
As many as 22 Indian ships with over 600 crew are stuck in the Gulf as the key energy corridor remains disrupted, AFP news agency reported.
In a statement, Randhir Jaiswal, India’s external affairs ministry spokesperson, said:
India had previously called for the avoidance of targeting civilian infrastructure, including energy infrastructure, across the region.
Recent attacks against energy installations in different locations across this region are therefore deeply disturbing and only serve to further destabilise an already uncertain energy scenario for the whole world.
Such attacks are unacceptable and need to cease.
The UK has joined European allies and Japan in saying they were ready “to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the strait of Hormuz”.
In a joint statement, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan condemned Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels and oil and gas facilities in the Gulf, while expressing “deep concern” over the escalating conflict.
The statement said:
We condemn in the strongest terms recent attacks by Iran on unarmed commercial vessels in the Gulf, attacks on civilian infrastructure including oil and gas installations, and the de facto closure of the strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces.
We express our deep concern about the escalating conflict.
We call on Iran to cease immediately its threats, laying of mines, drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the strait to commercial shipping, and to comply with UN Security Council Resolution 2817.
It continued:
We express our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the strait.
We welcome the commitment of nations who are engaging in preparatory planning.
We welcome the International Energy Agency decision to authorise a coordinated release of strategic petroleum reserves.
We will take other steps to stabilise energy markets, including working with certain producing nations to increase output.
We will also work to provide support for the most affected nations, including through the United Nations and the IFIs (International Financial Institutions).
The world’s biggest network of climate organisations has condemned the US-Israeli attack on Iran as “an illegal act of aggression” that “meets the criteria for ecocide”.
“An immediate and permanent ceasefire is the only path forward,” said the Climate Action Network, an umbrella group for more than 1,900 civil society organisations in over 130 countries, in a statement on Thursday, adding that such “unilateral attacks” by “imperialist interests” are a threat to countries across the global south.
The killings of more than 160 schoolgirls at a primary school in Minab, southern Iran, at the very beginning of the US-Israeli surprise attack on the country, was a symbol of the “normalisation of civilian death” encouraged by the genocide in Gaza, the statement said.
It went on:
The attacks on Iran’s oil storage facilities have unleashed massive health and environmental harm.
Burning fuel depots poison air, land, water and lungs that will linger in the atmosphere long after the bombing stops.
This meets the criteria for ecocide.
Corporations, financial institutions and the arms industry form part of the same fossil-fuelled war economy that profits from destruction while also accelerating climate breakdown.
Climate justice cannot exist in a world where war and impunity are allowed to expand unchecked.
The European Central Bank has said that the Middle East war “has made the outlook significantly more uncertain” with a risk of higher inflation and lower economic growth.
As it announced it was holding interest rates and predicting inflation would hit 2.6% this year, the ECB said:
It will have a material impact on near-term inflation through higher energy prices.
Its medium-term implications will depend both on the intensity and duration of the conflict and on how energy prices affect consumer prices and the economy.
We’ve just heard from Pete Hegseth.
He reiterated the claim from Donald Trump that the US president knew nothing about the attack on Iran’s South Pars gasfield.
However, Reuters is reporting that Israel says its attack on the gas facilities was coordinated with the United States.
Israel has not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the South Pars attack.
On Wednesday night, Trump said in a social media post that Washington “knew nothing about this particular attack” and that Israel would not attack the gas field further unless Iran again attacked Qatar.
The three Israeli officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said that Israel was not surprised by Trump’s comments.
They described the dynamic as similar to one that played out after Israel struck fuel depots in Iran several weeks ago.
After those attacks, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said that in “that particular case those weren’t our strikes”.
A reporting team came under fire in southern Lebanon on Thursday, when an Israeli airstrike struck within metres of their position as they were filming.
RT correspondent Steve Sweeney and his cameraman, Ali Rida, were wounded in the blast, according to their account.
The two said an Israeli aircraft launched a missile towards their filming location near the Al-Qasmiya Bridge, an area situated close to a local military installation.
Rida alleged the strike was deliberate, insisting the crew had been clearly identifiable as media, wearing uniforms marked with press insignia.
Footage captured by Rida’s camera appears to show the moment the missile landed, detonating less than ten metres behind Sweeney as he instinctively drops to the ground in an attempt to shield himself.
Both men remained conscious after the strike and were taken to a nearby hospital, where they are receiving treatment.
A negotiated deal between the United States and Iran to avert war “appeared really possible”, Oman’s foreign minister who mediated talks between the two sides has said.
Writing in The Economist, Badr Albusaidi abandoned the usual reserve of diplomatic language to call the war a “catastrophe” and said Donald Trump’s administration had “lost control of its own foreign policy”.
He mediated a second round of indirect negotiations that resumed in Oman on 6 February, with the final round held in Geneva on 26 February.
“It was a shock but not a surprise when on February 28th – just a few hours after the latest and most substantive talks – Israel and America again launched an unlawful military strike against the peace that had briefly appeared really possible,” Albusaidi wrote.
The details of what was on the table in Geneva is of major significance, experts say, because Trump justified the war by saying Iran posed an “imminent” threat with its nuclear programme.
Albusaidi blamed “Israel’s leadership” for persuading Trump that “an unconditional surrender would swiftly follow the initial assault and the assassination of the supreme leader” Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening salvo of the war.
“The American administration’s greatest miscalculation, of course, was allowing itself to be drawn into this war in the first place.”
“America’s friends have a responsibility to tell the truth,” he continued, adding that one of the messages “involves indicating the extent to which America has lost control of its own foreign policy”.
The Guardian revealed this week that Britain’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell attended the final round of US-Iran talks in Geneva and viewed Iran’s proposals as “significant enough to prevent a rush to war”.
US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration may “unsanction” Iranian oil that is already being shipped, as he tried to allay concerns over the rising price of oil amid the war.
“In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days as we continue this campaign,” he told Fox Business.
When asked by a reporter whether he felt Israel was pursuing its own objectives, in relation to the attack on Iran’s South Pars gasfield which Donald Trump said the US “knew nothing” about, Hegseth said: “We hold the cards.”
“We have objectives.
Those objectives are clear.
We have allies pursuing objectives as well,” he added.
He explained earlier in the press conference that the US’s objectives were to destroy Iran’s missiles, launchers, defence industrial base and navy, and for Tehran to never obtain nuclear weapon.
On the South Pars gasfield attack, he said: “Iran has weaponised energy for decades.
Israel clearly sent a warning.”
Answering a reporter’s question on Iran’s missile capabilities, considering the country has managed to strike numerous states in the Gulf, Gen Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, said Tehran retains “some capability” to attack American assets.
“They came into this fight with a lot of weapons.,” he said, adding that the US was continuing to be “as aggressive and assertive” in striking Iran.
Hegseth declined to say when or how the war with Iran could end, other than saying the US was “very much on track”.
He said:
It will be at the president’s choosing ultimately, where we say, hey, we’ve achieved what we need to on behalf of the American people to ensure our security.
So no, no time set on that.
But we’re very much on track.
When asked by a reporter which countries were being the most cooperative with the US, Hegseth said Israel “from day one has been an incredible and capable partner, willing and able”.
He said the Gulf states have “stepped up incredibly”, adding: “We’re proud to be defending with them, standing with them, you name it.
UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and others.”
Hegseth ended his prepared speech with an overtly religious plea for Americans to pray for US troops “on bended knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ”.
Hegseth said the US-Israeli strikes against Iran has “struck over 7,000 targets”.
To date, we’ve struck over 7000 targets across Iran and its military infrastructure.
That is not incremental.
That is overwhelming force applied with precision.
He added that Iran’s ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles has “probably taken the hardest hit” and was “down 90% since the start of the conflict”.
“UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicle], think kamikaze drones, down 90%,” he said.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has opened a press conference on the Iran war saying he spoke to the families of six US service members who died when a military refueling aircraft crashed over Iraq last week.
They said, finish this.
Honour their sacrifice.
Do not waver.
Do not stop until the job is done.
My response, along with that of the president, was simple, of course we will finish this.
We will honour their sacrifice.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer has condemned the Iranian strikes against a Qatari gas facility.
Iran attacked Qatar’s key Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in retaliation against Israel’s strike on its South Pars gasfield in the Persian Gulf.
In a post on X, Starmer said:
I condemn in the strongest terms the overnight Iranian strike on a Qatari gas facility.
We are working towards a swift resolution to the situation in the Middle East, in the best interests of the British people – because there is no question that ending the war is the quickest way to reduce the cost of living.
In retaliation for an Israeli strike on Iran’s South Pars gasfield — the largest natural gasfield in the world — Tehran is exerting pressure on Gulf states by targeting critical energy infrastructure.
Officials in Qatar said this morning that Iranian missiles struck Ras Laffan, the country’s principal gas hub, causing what officials described as “significant damage”.
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation reported that a drone hit an operational unit at the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, about 50km (31 miles) south of Kuwait City, sparking a fire.
No casualties were reported.
A second drone strike targeted the Mina Abdullah refinery in southern Kuwait, also igniting a fire, according to the state oil company.
UAE authorities said they were dealing with incidents at Habshan gas facility and Bab oilfield, after debris from intercepted missiles fell in the area.
No injuries have been reported.
Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said a drone crashed at the Saudi Aramco-operated Samref refinery in the Red Sea port of Yanbu, with “damage assessments” ongoing.
Iran is reportedly considering a transit fee on shipping passing through the strait of Hormuz, according to state media.
About 20% of global oil supplies have been effectively blocked from transiting the strait of Hormuz since Iran began attacking ships.
US president Donald Trump has suggested sending warships to clear a safe path for commercial sea traffic, a notion firmly rejected by European allies.
Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency reported that a new Iranian government would sanction “domination-seeking powers” who use the strait of Hormuz.
“At the end of current imposed war, with drawing a new regime for the strait of Hormuz, Iran will turn its position from a sanctioned country to an enhanced power in the region and the world,” Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, was quoted as saying.
“We will sanction those domination-seeking arrogant powers using the strait of Hormuz to not allow their ships pass through the strait.”
AFP, citing the state-affiliated Iranian Student news agency, reported an Iranian politician as saying the government was considering a bill under which countries using the key trade route to pay tolls and taxes to Tehran for shipping, energy transit and food supplies.
Four people including three Palestinian women and a foreign national were killed overnight during Iran’s missile attacks against Israel.
Three Palestinian women were killed in Beit Awwa, near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, when debris or possibly a munition from an Iranian missile fell on a women’s hair salon, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent and local media reports.
A Thai agricultural worker was also killed in central Israel, Thailand’s foreign ministry said.
The Israeli Hareetz newspaper reported a Thai national in his 20s was killed by a direct hit on an agricultural structure in the Sharon area just north of Tel Aviv.
Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said a drone crashed at oil giant Saudi Aramco’s Samref refinery in the Red Sea port of Yanbu, according to state media.
Maj Gen Turki Al-Malki, a defence ministry spokesperson, said a ballistic missile launched toward Yanbu port was intercepted and destroyed, Saudi Press Agency reported.
The ministry said “damage assessment” was under way, without elaborating.
European natural gas prices rose as much as 35% today after attacks to energy infrastructure in the Gulf intensified.
European gas prices have increased by more than 60% since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on 28 February, Reuters news agency reported.
The price of Brent crude – the global benchmark – also increased to $112 a barrel today.
It settled yesterday at $107.38 a barrel, according to reports, bringing the cost of crude oil up more than 48% since the war began.
It has not dropped below the $100 threshold since 13 March.
Uncertainty continues to grow over how the escalating war in the Middle East would affect energy supplies, as attacks were reported in Qatar and Kuwait this morning, a day after Iran’s largest natural gasfield was hit.
Qatar said Iranian missiles caused “extensive damage” to its main gas facility at Ras Laffan, while Kuwaiti state media reported attacks at two of the country’s oil refineries.
An oil refinery in Kuwait was targeted in a drone strike this morning, sparking a “limited” fire , according to state media.
The fire at the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery was contained and there were no reports of injuries, the Kuwait News Agency reported, citing the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.
The report did not say where the strike was launched from.
The oil refinery is located about 30 miles south of Kuwait City.
It is one of the largest oil refineries in the Middle East, with a petroleum production capacity of 730,000 barrels per day.
Turning to Australia now, a petrol tsar will manage “unprecedented” supply issues caused by the Middle East conflict as the finishing touches are put on measures to address dire shortages in many regional areas.
Prime minister Anthony Albanese convened a snap virtual meeting of the national cabinet on Thursday to discuss major price shocks and shortages driven by the US-Israel war on Iran.
The former Australian Energy Regulator CEO Anthea Harris was announced as the co-ordinator of a fuel-supply taskforce and will oversee work involving the nation’s different tiers of government on fuel-security and supply-chain issues, reports Australian Associated Press.
State leaders who demanded faster action and a long-term plan from the federal government welcomed the move.
Albanese said there was a “good feeling of common purpose” during their meeting, telling reporters:
My government will be announcing more measures to prepare the nation for supply chain challenges over coming days and weeks.
Our fuel supply is currently secure.
However, I want us to be over-prepared.
Meanwhile, Australia’s competition watchdog is investigating major fuel suppliers including Ampol, BP, Mobil and Viva Energy for alleged anti-competitive conduct amid growing shortages sparked by the Iran war.
Saudi Arabia has not ruled out military action in response to repeated missile and drone attacks from Iran, the foreign minister said.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting in Riyadh of foreign ministers from the region, Prince Faisal bin Farhan said on Thursday that Iran “tries to pressure its neighbours” with attacks.
The kingdom is not going to succumb to pressure, and on the contrary, this pressure will backfire ... and certainly, as we have stated quite clearly, we have reserved the right to take military actions if deemed necessary.
An attack set a ship ablaze early on Thursday off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre said a vessel was “hit by an unknown projectile, which has resulted in a fire onboard”.
The agency said the vessel was just off the coast of Khor Fakkan in the UAE, near the mouth of the strait of Hormuz.
More than 20 vessels have been attacked during the Iran war so far.
Cathay Pacific has suspended flights to and from Dubai over the war in the Middle East.
“In view of the developing situation in the Middle East, all Cathay Pacific flights to and from Dubai have been cancelled up to and including 30 April 2026,” the company said in a statement.
The Hong Kong aviation giant added that “further changes to our flight schedule may be needed in the coming days”.
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