Donald Trump has said the US “knew nothing” about Israel’s strike on a major gas field in Iran on Wednesday, warning Tehran not to retaliate further against Qatar.
Iran caused “extensive damage” with missile attacks on a major energy industry site in Qatar after Israel targeted the South Pars gas site – part of the world’s largest natural gas field.
While Israel has not officially confirmed its attack on the gas field, the US president said its ally had “violently lashed out” at Iran “out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East”.
Conflict across the regioncontinues after the US and Israel launched wide-ranging strikes on Iran on 28 February.
Tehran responded by launching attacks on Israel and US-allied states in the Gulf. Israel is also fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, where more than a million people have been displaced.
Following the attack, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned of “consequences beyond control, the scope of which would engulf the entire world”.
Verified images of the strike showed smoke rising from at least two impacts.
Iran retaliated by striking Qatar’s Ras Laffan site on Wednesday and early on Thursday.
Ras Laffan is an industrial area that contains the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing facility.
Following the first attack, state-owned petroleum company, QatarEnergy, said “extensive damage” had been caused to the site, but all personnel were accounted for.
After the site was hit for a second time, Qatar’s interior ministry said all fires at the energy facility had been brought under control without any reported injuries.
Early on Thursday, Trump said the US “knew nothing” of Israel’s earlier strike on South Pars, and threatened an escalation if Iran attacked Qatar again.
He said “Qatar was in no way, shape, or form, involved with” Israel’s attack on the Iranian gas field, and Iran’s retaliatory attacks on Qatar’s Ras Laffan were made “unjustifiably and unfairly”.
If Iran did strike Qatar again, Trump threatened that the US would “massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before”.
He added that he did not want to authorise “this level of violence and destruction because of the long term implications” for Iran, “but if Qatar’s LNG is again attacked, I will not hesitate to do so”.
Prior to Trump’s statement, the Wall Street Journal had quoted unnamed US officials saying the president had supported the strike on South Pars as a message to Iran over its restriction of tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz – one of the world’s busiest oil shipping lanes – but that he did not want to see further such strikes.
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman said “the Israeli targeting of facilities linked to Iran’s South Pars field, an extension of Qatar’s North Field” was a “dangerous and irresponsible step”. The UAE and Oman also condemned the attack.
The Qatari government later went on to describe the first Iranian attack on its Ras Laffan oil site as “brazen” and a “direct threat to its national security and the stability of the region”.
“The Iranian side continues its escalatory policies that are pushing the region toward the abyss and drawing in countries that are not parties to this crisis into the circle of conflict,” the ministry said in a statement.
It added that Qatar “reserves its right to respond”.
Two Iranian diplomats and their staff were ordered to leave Qatar within 24 hours.
Earlier, authorities in Abu Dhabi said they were dealing with two incidents of fallen debris following the interception of missiles.
The missiles had been on course for the Habshan gas facility and the Bab oil field, the United Arab Emirate (UAE)’s media office said. No injuries were recorded but operations at the gas facilities had been suspended, it said.
Also on Wednesday evening Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said it was “thwarting an attempt to attack one of the gas facilities in the eastern region”. It follows reports that five drones were destroyed as they attempted to approach energy facilities in the region.
Elsewhere near the capital Riyadh, authorities said four residents were injured by falling shrapnel after a ballistic missile was intercepted.
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