Firefighters inspect destruction at a site of an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut on March 3. The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran has spread across the Middle East, threatening to plunge the global economy into chaos.
Image: AFP
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday they had "complete control" of the crucial Strait of Hormuz and Israel launched new strikes on Iranian and Lebanese targets as the war engulfing the Middle East continued into its fifth day.
The Revolutionary Guards said Iranian forces had "complete control" of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for world oil and gas supplies, and any vessels seeking to pass risked damage from missiles or stray drones.
US President Donald Trump said Tuesday the US Navy was ready to escort oil tankers through the crucial Gulf shipping route.
The Guards said they had also launched more than 40 missiles at US and Israeli targets in a new wave of strikes.
Seoul shares collapsed more than 12 percent as Asian equity markets were hit by panic selling on Wednesday, while oil rose amid fears the US-Israel war on Iran will fan inflation and hammer the global economy.
As the joint strikes on the Islamic Republic moved into a fifth day, observers warned that the continued choking of crude supplies from the Middle East would continue to push prices higher and deal a blow to hopes for any more monetary easing.
Trump's pledge to escort oil tankers through the Strait provided some relief to traders and pared a rally in prices on Tuesday.
However, Iranian strikes on several neighbours threatened to broaden the conflict, while uncertainty about how long the war would go on and news that some oil fields in the region had been closed continued to put upward pressure on the commodity.
West Texas Intermediate has soared 12 percent to more than $75 since last Friday, before the attacks began, while Brent is up more than 13 percent to sit above $82. The latter has risen by more than 24% since mid-February. With some warning that they could top $100 a barrel, equity markets are taking a pounding.
Explosions rocked the Lebanese capital and Israel said it was launching a new wave of overnight strikes on Iran, as the war engulfing the Middle East continued into Wednesday.
Admiral Brad Cooper, who is leading US military forces in the Middle East, said in a video message that "nearly 2,000 targets" had been struck so far in Iran.
"We have severely degraded Iran's air defences and destroyed hundreds of Iran's ballistic missiles, launchers and drones," he said.
A loud explosion was heard by an AFP journalist in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, shortly after midnight on Wednesday, as Israel and Hezbollah traded strikes and rocket fire.
Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes on two towns south of Beirut — outside of Iran-backed Hezbollah's traditional strongholds — killed six people and wounded eight.
Later on Wednesday, Lebanese state media said Israeli strikes hit a hotel in the Beirut suburb of Hazmieh and a four-storey building in the eastern city of Baalbek.
Qatar, which hosts a major US military base and has been targeted by multiple Iranian strikes since the outbreak of the war, reported after midnight Wednesday that it had dismantled two spy cells linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
Ten suspects were arrested who "admitted during the investigation their links to the Revolutionary Guards and having been instructed to conduct espionage and sabotage activities," the nation's official press agency said.
Israel's military said Wednesday it has launched a "broad wave of strikes" on targets in Iran, after the Islamic republic launched three separate missile barrages at Israeli territory.
Rocket trails are seen in the sky above the city of Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, amid a fresh barrage of Iranian missile attacks on March 4, 2026.
Image: Hazem Bader / AFP
Earlier on Tuesday, Israel said it had struck an underground nuclear site in Iran where it said scientists were "covertly" developing a key component for nuclear weapons.
A drone attack caused a fire at the US consulate in Dubai as Iran ramped up its targeting of American diplomatic missions in the Gulf.
Residents told AFP they heard a bang, and one said she then saw the blaze. Police cordoned off roads nearby and shooed away passersby trying to see the damage.
France is sending its flagship aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean in response to the widening conflict in the Middle East, President Emmanuel Macron announced.
The Charles de Gaulle carrier has been pulled out of a deployment in the North Atlantic to head for the eastern Mediterranean. It made a stopover in the Swedish port of Malmo last week.
The United States said that it had arranged charter flights to help Americans leave the Middle East.
US officials have helped arrange charter flights from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, "and will continue to secure additional capacity as security conditions allow," the State Department said.
President Donald Trump threatened to sever all trade with Spain after it refused to let US planes use its bases to attack Iran, while he also lashed out at Britain for not cooperating more.
Spain's left-wing government led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, one of Europe's most defiant leaders against Trump, has said that bases long used by US forces could only be allowed for activities consistent with the United Nations Charter.
Trump said the US navy would escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz if needed amid the Iran war and ordered Washington to provide insurance for shipping.
"If necessary, the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible. No matter what, the United States will ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD," he said on his Truth Social platform.
An air strike hit the Jurf al-Nasr military base Tuesday in southern Iraq but only caused material damage, according to sources from the Iran-backed Kataeb Hezbollah group, which has members located there.
More than 10 fighters, mostly from Kataeb Hezbollah, have been killed in strikes across Iraq since Saturday.
An explosion was also heard overnight by AFP in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.
The autonomous Kurdistan region, which hosts US troops and Iranian Kurdish fighters, has been the main target of Iranian drones in Iraq.
AFP