Iran’s strikes against Gulf states over the weekend went beyond military targets, hitting a desalination plant in Bahrain and killing two civilians in a Saudi residential neighborhood — attacks that, combined with Israeli strikes on Iranian oil facilities, sent global oil prices above $100 per barrel and sparked international condemnation.
The strikes came after Israeli forces attacked oil storage and fuel distribution sites near Tehran, killing four workers and blanketing the capital in black smoke. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned that Gulf states had a choice: press Israel and the United States to halt their campaign or face the consequences, which they made clear would include continued attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure alike.
Saudi Arabia intercepted 15 incoming drones, while 12 people were injured in the residential strike in Al-Kharj. A US service member died from wounds sustained in a separate Iranian attack on American forces in Saudi Arabia, the seventh American fatality of the conflict. Bahrain’s desalination plant — a critical source of fresh water for the island nation — sustained significant damage.
Iran’s political transition deepened the uncertainty. The clerical assembly appointed Mojtaba Khamenei as the country’s new supreme leader, the first hereditary transfer of Iran’s highest office. Critics questioned the legitimacy of the appointment, arguing that it undermined the founding principles of the Islamic Republic.
Washington pledged not to target Iranian energy infrastructure and expressed confidence that supply disruptions would be temporary. But with Iran striking civilian infrastructure, oil prices above $100, and a new untested leader in Tehran, markets were not in a position to share Washington’s confidence.