Alexander Smith is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital based in London.
The molten fireballs and belching smoke over the Middle East early Thursday signaled a dramatic escalation in the Iran war — and its threat to the global economy. Israel launched a widespread strike on Iran's world-largest gas field, South Pars, triggering retaliation from Tehran against key energy sites across the Gulf Arab states.
Like the blockaded Strait of Hormuz, these facilities dictate global prices for energy and other goods, which soared early Thursday. Economists are alarmed this disruption could cause a global economic shock triggering price rises and shortages for billions of people. With American allies in the Gulf and Europe expressing fury, President Donald Trump said Israel would launch no more attacks on the gas field unless Iran again bombed U.S. partner Qatar. If Tehran did so, he vowed he would “massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field.” Qatar is livid with Iran but also the U.S. and Israel, a senior official close to its leaders told NBC News. The Gulf kingdom is angry that a war partly framed as protecting the flows of oil and gas is now setting its vital infrastructure ablaze, the official said. French President Emmanuel Macron called the escalation 'reckless,' adding that he hopes 'everyone comes to their senses.' The international benchmark of Brent crude spiked as high as $119 a barrel. And wholesale natural gas prices across Europe rose sharply by as much as 25%. The latest flashpoint started Wednesday when Iranian state media said Israel had bombed facilities associated with the South Pars gas field, which it shares with Qatar. Video posted to social media and geolocated by NBC News showed roiling fireballs and the sky rank with black smoke above a refinery in Asaluyeh, on Iran's Gulf coastline. In response, Iran bombed Qatar's Ras Laffan Industrial City, a vast steel complex of refineries, storage tanks and pipelines processing liquified natural gas, or LNG. It also hit a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea and two Kuwaiti oil refineries. QatarEnergy, the world's largest supplier of LNG, said in a statement that the attacks caused 'sizeable fires and extensive further damage' but that these were extinguished with no casualties. Trump said the United States “knew nothing” about the assault by Israel, which he wrote in a Truth Social post late Wednesday had “violently lashed out” out of “anger at what has taken place in the Middle East.” Trump's assertion that the U.S. knew nothing is not true, the senior official close to Qatar’s leaders said. Axios, citing unnamed American and Israeli officials, reported that Trump knew and that the U.S. had in fact “green-lit” and coordinated the attack with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The aim was to “deter Iran from continuing to disrupt oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz,” Axios reporting citing Israeli officials. The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment. Countries across the Gulf condemned the escalation, and some even raised the prospect of their own direct involvement. Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told NBC News in Riyadh of Tehran's retaliation that “what little trust there was has been completely shattered.” Some analysts came away from the exchange with the assessment that it 'really seems like Iran won this round,' as Gregory Brew, a senior analyst at the Eurasia Group think tank, put it on X. 'Iran emerged with the upper hand,' agreed Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher on Iran at the Institute for National Security Studies, which is affiliated with Tel Aviv University in Israel. 'It demonstrated once again that it will not hesitate to raise the level of escalation to defend its strategic assets — without any retreat on the issue of the Strait of Hormuz,' he wrote. 'This was entirely predictable.' It would likely be impossible to “blow up the entirety” of South Pars, analysts said. This is a vast and intricate body of porous rock that was formed over millions of years. It lies around 3,000 meters below the seabed and covers roughly the same area as Rhode Island. “But you can cause widescale disruption as these facilities are extremely delicate,” said Michael Stephens, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank based in London. “Trump understands this, which is why he wants to avoid further attacks on the gas fields.”
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