Crisis spreads beyond Middle East into Asia as Iran, Israel continue trading blows

Follow our live coverage here.

DUBAI – A broadening regional conflict that began with the US-Israeli attack on Iran has spilt beyond the Gulf states and into Asia, even as Israel and Iran continued to trade blows.

Azerbaijan said on March 5 that two drones fired from Iran landed in Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani exclave on Iran’s northern border, injuring two civilians and damaging a local airport.

The incident in Azerbaijan happened a day after a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka, and NATO air defences shot down an Iranian ballistic missile fired towards Turkey.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the sinking of the Iranian frigate Dena, which killed at least 87 people, an “atrocity at sea”. He said the warship, a guest of the Indian Navy with nearly 130 sailors on board, was struck without warning in international waters. He warned that Washington would “bitterly regret” the precedent it had set.

Iranian Army General Kioumars Heydari told state TV: “We have decided to fight Americans wherever they are.”

He added that Iran did not care how long the war lasts.

The Iranian Armed Forces General Staff denied on March 5 that it had fired missiles at Turkey, saying Iran respected the sovereignty of “friendly” Turkey, according to a statement carried by Iranian media.

Gulf countries have been targeted by repeated waves of Iranian drone and missile attacks in retaliation for the massive US-Israeli air campaign.

Multiple rounds of explosions echoed over the Qatari capital Doha on March 5, just hours after officials said they were evacuating people living near the US embassy.

Journalists on the ground in Doha described the blasts on March 5 as some of the most intense since Iran began targeting the Gulf state on Feb 28.

The targeting of Qatar came hours after the country’s Prime Minister lambasted Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi during a call, in the first high-level contact between the two countries since the Islamic republic launched its missile and drone campaign.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani accused Iran of seeking to “harm its neighbours and drag them into a war that is not theirs”.

Explosions were also heard in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, on March 5.

In neighbouring Saudi Arabia, officials said they intercepted three cruise missiles and several drones.

Elsewhere, a tanker was hit by a “large explosion” in waters off Kuwait, causing an oil spill, British maritime security agency UKMTO reported.

No end in sight

Israel and Iran continued to trade blows.

The Israeli military announced another wave of strikes on Tehran and on Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure overnight, as well as on Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group in Lebanon.

Iran launched a new wave of ballistic missiles at Israel early on March 5, the military said. One Iranian drone shot down by Israeli air defences crashed in southern Syria, according to Syrian state media.

Iran struck again at pro-American Kurdish forces in neighbouring Iraq, hitting a base belonging to one of the groups, the Komala Party.

Iran has for days targeted the Kurdish forces, which it views as terrorist groups, as Iraqi officials and senior members of the forces say they are preparing armed units that could enter Iran.

In Washington late on March 4, Republican senators blocked a motion aimed at stopping the US air campaign against Iran and requiring that military action be authorised by Congress.

That rejection leaves President Donald Trump’s power to direct the war largely unbound, as the conflict continues to widen across the Middle East and beyond.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz by telephone: “Keep going until the end. We are with you.”

The repeated air attacks on Tehran have forced the postponement of the funeral for the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, killed by Israeli forces on Feb 28 in the first strikes of the war.

Mr Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the slain Supreme Leader, has emerged as a front runner to succeed him, suggesting Tehran is not about to buckle under pressure from the US-Israeli military campaign that has killed hundreds.

‘Testing global resilience’

Asian shares rallied on March 5 after days of sharp losses, in line with a rebound in US stocks on hopes the war might end soon.

Some traders said the improved sentiment followed a New York Times report that Iranian intelligence had contacted the US Central Intelligence Agency early in the war about a path towards ending it.

But a source from the Iranian Intelligence Ministry rejected the article as “absolute lies and psychological warfare in the midst of war”, Iran’s semi-official news agency Tasnim reported.

International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva said the conflict was testing “global economic resilience”.

“This conflict, if proven to be prolonged, has obvious potential to affect global energy prices, market sentiments, growth and inflation. And it would place new demands on shoulders of policymakers everywhere,” she said at an event in Bangkok on March 5.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remained paralysed on March 5, choking off vital Middle East oil and gas flows, and oil prices rose further. At least 200 vessels remain anchored off the coast.

Repatriation flights departed the Middle East on March 4 as governments rushed to bring home tens of thousands of citizens stranded by the war. A British flight to repatriate UK nationals did not take off as scheduled from Oman and was rescheduled for later on March 5, Sky News reported.

Commercial air traffic remained largely absent across much of the region, with major Gulf hubs including Dubai, the world’s busiest airport for international passengers, affected. REUTERS