The war in the Middle East continued to escalate Monday, with multiple countries dragged into the growing conflict between the US, Israel and Iran.
The US and Israel have continued to pound Iran following the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the weekend, with president Donald Trump warning the worst is yet to come.
“We haven’t even started hitting them hard,” he told CNN. “The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon.”
Tehran and its allies have hit back, with Lebanon, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia among the nations struck in retaliatory attacks.
A series of loud explosions were heard across Gulf cities on Monday, with civilian targets in the region, including hotels and airports, also hit.
Tourists and residents in supposed Middle Eastern safe havens like Dubai have described missiles going past their windows, while hundreds of thousands of airline passengers have found themselves stranded by flights cancelled in hotspot areas.
The conflict is already having a global economic impact with oil prices shooting up in response to the crisis.
The death toll continues to climb on all sides, with fears the strikes could go on for weeks. The Iranian Red Crescent Society said that the US-Israeli operation has already killed at least 555 people, with reports of 165 victims at a girls’ school in southern Iran.
In Israel, where several locations were hit by Iranian missiles, 11 people were killed. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group also targeted Israel, which responded with strikes on Lebanon, killing more than two dozen more.
Four American service members have now been killed. There are also three people in the UAE, and one each in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Amid growing concerns that the conflict could spiral into a protracted regional war, including over the lack of any apparent exit plan, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth insisted “this is not endless” as he held the Trump administration’s first news briefing since strikes were launched on Saturday.
But Iran’s top security official Ali Larijani vowed on X on Monday: “We will not negotiate with the United States.”
In an indication that the war could draw in yet more nations, the UK, France and Germany have pledged to help the US stop Iranian attacks.
A drone hit the British RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus on Sunday with two more intercepted on Monday. Sir Keir Starmer said this was “not in response to any decision that we have taken” but was launched before Britain’s announcement that it would allow America to use its bases.
The chaos of the conflict was further highlighted on Monday when the US military said Kuwait had “mistakenly shot down” three American F-15E Strike Eagles during a friendly fire incident. US Central Command said all six pilots ejected safely and are in stable condition.
In Kuwait City, fire and smoke rose from inside the American embassy compound, shortly after the US issued a warning to Americans to take cover and stay away from the complex. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery came under attack from drones, with defences downing the incoming aircraft, a military spokesperson told the state-run Saudi Press Agency. The refinery has a capacity of over half a million barrels of crude oil a day.
With world markets already rattled by the fighting, QatarEnergy said it would stop its production of liquefied natural gas, taking one of the world’s top suppliers off the market. It offered no timeline for restoring its production. European natural gas prices surged by 40 per cent in response.
Iran has long threatened that, if attacked, it would drag the region into total war, targeting Israel, the Gulf Arab states and the flow of crude oil crucial for global energy markets. All of these came under attack on Monday.
But Mr Hegseth insisted Iran “had a gun to our head” as he defended the joint US-Israeli attacks that sparked the widening conflict.
The conflict erupted on Saturday when Mr Trump launched what he described as a “major combat operation” to destroy Iran’s military capabilities and eliminate the threat of the country creating a nuclear weapon, following weeks of pressure.
Sir Keir has defended the UK’s “deliberate” decision not to join in with the wave of strikes by the US and Israel on Iran at the weekend, after Mr Trump said he was “very disappointed in Keir”.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon, the prime minister responded: “It is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interest. That is what I’ve done, and I stand by it.”
The government insisted that Britain is not at war, but Sir Keir did condemn Iran’s “reckless” and “dangerous” actions and vowed to continue “defensive” actions in the region.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, claimed he and Mr Trump are saving the world from the threat of Iran.
“We set out to protect ourselves, but in doing so we protect many others,” he said as he visited the site of a deadly Iranian missile attack in central Israel.
Iran’s cabinet has vowed that this “great crime will never go unanswered”, and the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened to launch its “most intense offensive operation” ever, targeting Israeli and American bases.
