Iran launched new strikes against Israel and US military bases in the Middle East as aerial attacks resumed early on Thursday after an American submarine sank an Iranian warship and Iran threatened the destruction of military and economic infrastructure across the region.

Israel announced multiple incoming missile attacks, and air sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Iranian state television said additional strikes also targeted US bases. The Israeli military said it had begun new strikes in Lebanon targeting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The fighting continued after the United States and Israel intensified their bombardment of Iran on Wednesday.

The tempo of the strikes on Iran was so intense that state television announced the mourning ceremony for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the start of the conflict, would be postponed. Millions attended the funeral of his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989.

Iran fired on Bahrain, Kuwait and Israel as the conflict spiralled.

The war has killed more than 1,000 people in Iran, more than 70 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel. It has disrupted the supply of the world’s oil and gas, snarled international shipping and stranded hundreds of thousands of travellers in the Middle East.

Neighbouring countries braced for potential dangers on Thursday, a day after Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened “the complete destruction of the region’s military and economic infrastructure”.

Qatar’s Interior Ministry said authorities were evacuating residents near the US embassy in Doha as a temporary precaution.

Fighter jets could be heard overhead in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai.

And a new attack off the coast of Kuwait appeared to expand the area where commercial shipping was in danger.

An explosion rocked the area early on Thursday, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre run by the British military. It said a tanker apparently came under attack, causing an oil spill. Iran in the past has attacked ships by attaching limpet mines to them. (AP)



Edited by Thomas McAlinden