Iran retains half its launchers; first Western ship crosses Hormuz
Iran fired on targets across West Asia, sparking multiple blazes at a Kuwaiti oil refinery, while American and Israeli airstrikes hit the Islamic Republic on Friday, April 3, as the war neared the end of its fifth week unabated and the UN Security Council prepared to meet over Tehran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
Despite claims from the US and Israel that Iran’s military capabilities have been all but destroyed, Tehran has continued to keep the pressure on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbours, hitting Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery early Friday in a drone attack.
The refinery has been hit multiple times during the war, and state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp said firefighters were working to control several blazes. Sirens also sounded in Bahrain, warning of Iranian attacks. Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed several Iranian drones, defences were activated in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel reported incoming missiles.
Activists reported strikes around Tehran and the central city of Isfahan, but it wasn’t immediately clear what was hit.
Iran retains half its missile launchers: US Intel
Recent American intelligence assessments indicate that Iran still holds roughly half of its missile launchers, notwithstanding weeks of sustained US and Israeli strikes, sources told CNN.
The assessments further suggest Tehran retains thousands of one-way attack drones, with approximately 50 per cent of its drone capacity still functional.
The findings sit uneasily alongside statements by US President Donald Trump, who has claimed Iran’s “ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed” and that its “weapons factories and rocket launchers are being blown to pieces, very few of them left.”
Iran threatens to ‘destroy’ US regional assets
Iran’s military has warned it will expand attacks across the region if the United States follows through on threats to target its civilian infrastructure.
“Touch the infrastructure, we will destroy all your assets and infrastructure in the region,” said Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters, citing what he described as President Donald Trump’s “repeated threats to destroy Iran’s bridges, power plants, and electricity and energy infrastructure.”
Zolfaghari warned that any such action would prompt Iran’s armed forces to target US and Israeli-linked fuel, energy and economic installations across the region, including assets in countries hosting American troops.
The statement came after Trump claimed US forces had destroyed Iran’s largest bridge, sharing footage of a section of an under-construction suspension bridge between Tehran and Karaj collapsing.
Kuwait says Iranian attack damaged desalination plant
Kuwait said on Friday an Iranian attack damaged a desalination plant. The attack came after an oil refinery was hit by drones on Friday morning.
Kuwait said without elaborating that the attack on the desalination plant caused “material damage to some of the plant’s components.”
Desalination provides the majority of the water for the Gulf Arab states and Iran, drawing the salty waters of the Persian Gulf into drinking water for the desert region. About 90 per cent of drinking water in Kuwait comes from desalination.
Desalination plants have become a major target in the war, with Iran initially accusing the US and Israel of striking one before beginning to target them in the Gulf Arab states. Those states view attacks on desalination plants as a threat to their very livelihoods.
Fire breaks out at UAE’s Habshan gas facility
A fire broke out at the Habshan gas processing facility in Abu Dhabi after debris from an intercepted projectile struck the complex, the Abu Dhabi Media Office said.
Operations at the facility have been suspended while authorities respond to the blaze. No injuries have been reported, it added in a post on X.
French container ship makes first known Western transit of Hormuz
A container ship signalling French ownership has passed through the Strait of Hormuz, in what appears to be the first known transit by a Western European-linked vessel since the Iran conflict effectively closed the critical waterway.
The CMA CGM Kribi sailed from waters off Dubai toward Iran on Thursday afternoon, , April 2, local time, hugging the Iranian coastline and passing through the channel between the islands of Qeshm and Larak, according to ship-tracking data. The vessel broadcast its journey openly. By Friday morning, it was signalling a position off Muscat. Two people familiar with the matter confirmed the crossing to Bloomberg.
UN Security Council to take up Strait of Hormuz question
Shipping had flowed freely through the strait before the war, but US President Donald Trump has said it’s not now Washington’s responsibility to get the waterway reopened, instead putting the onus on others, saying this week that the countries that depend more on fuel shipped through Hormuz should “build some delayed courage” and go “take it.”
The UN Security Council was expected to vote Saturday, April 4, on a proposal from Bahrain that would authorise defensive action to ensure vessels can safely transit the strait. Bahrain’s initial draft would have allowed countries to “use all necessary means” to secure the strait, but Russia, China and France — who have veto power on the Council — expressed opposition to approving the use of force.
Thousands of US Marines and paratroopers have been ordered to the region, and Trump could try a ground operation to take Iran’s Kharg Island, its main oil terminal, or territory along the strait, but both carry significant risks, former CIA Director Bill Burns said on a Foreign Affairs magazine podcast.
Iran’s former top diplomat suggests terms to end the war
The US has presented Iran with a 15-point plan for a ceasefire that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but no signs of progress were apparent in the diplomatic effort, with Iran regularly noting the US has attacked the nation the last two times it was in negotiations with the Trump administration, including to start this war.
In a proposal published Friday in Foreign Affairs, Iran’s former top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif suggested, however, that Iran should now “use its upper hand” to make a ceasefire deal.
Zarif, the former foreign minister who helped reach the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, wrote that Tehran “should offer to place limits on its nuclear program and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an end to all sanctions — a deal Washington wouldn’t take before but might accept now.”
While Zarif has no official position now in Iran’s theocracy, he helped get reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian elected. He also would not have been able to publish such a piece without at least running the positions past senior members of the country’s theocracy.
Death toll keeps rising
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 US service members have been killed.
More than 1,300 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced in Lebanon, where Israel has launched a ground invasion in its fight with the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militant group. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.
(With inputs from Associated Press)
