NPR - A wave of attacks from Iran today has hit the world’s largest liquefied natural gas complex in Qatar. Iran also targeted a gas field and facility in the United Arab Emirates and fired missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia. The attacks come after Israel bombed Iran’s South Pars gas field yesterday. Energy prices surged immediately, driving oil up to around $110 a barrel, which is about $40 higher than before the conflict began. President Trump said on social media late yesterday that Israel acted independently when it struck the gas field in Iran.
NBC News - Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declined to say if Iran's nuclear program presented an "imminent threat," deflecting questions from lawmakers during a Senate hearing yesterday about whether U.S. intelligence backed up White House statements on the rationale for starting the war. Gabbard has stayed mostly silent on the war since it began on Feb. 28. Her reluctance to offer a full-throated endorsement of President Donald Trump's decision to wage war on Iran, unlike other Cabinet officials, renewed questions about her standing in the administration. More
The Guardian - More than 3,000 people are believed to have been killed across Iran so far, and the Pentagon says more than 15,000 targets in the country have been hit in the first two weeks. A girls’ school in the south-eastern Iranian city of Minab lies in rubble, with about 175 children and teachers killed in a strike that the US is believed to have carried out. The strait of Hormuz, the narrow sea passage turned chokepoint for the Gulf’s oil and the world, is effectively closed.
And the bill, according to analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is growing by roughly half a billion dollars every day.
A week after American and Israeli forces began their assault on Iran, and its repressive leadership, Pentagon officials told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that the cost of the war had already exceeded $11.3bn in its first six days.
But that figure is only part of the story: sources familiar with the content of the briefing told the Guardian the estimate appeared largely limited to munitions expenditures and not the full cost of the opening days of the conflict, which could include forces deployed to the region, medical expenses, and the replacement of military aircraft lost in combat.
By day six, CSIS put the cumulative cost at $12.7bn. Today, it is likely to have exceeded $18bn – and the meter is still running.
Damien Gayle, The Guardian - Since the beginning of March, thousands of Israeli American bombs and missiles have fallen on Iran’s oil refineries, military bases, industrial areas and nuclear facilities. Iran, in exchange, has launched retaliatory suicide drones and ballistic missiles at similar targets inside Israel and across Gulf states including the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain.
Every impact is a human and environmental catastrophe, which together will add up to a toxic legacy that will blight the whole region – but especially Iran – for decades to come.
With attacks coming thick and fast, environmental monitors have struggled to keep up with incidents. Wim Zwijnenburg, a remote sensing specialist with the Dutch peace advocacy organisation Pax, told me on Wednesday that he has already compiled a database of more than 500 incidents of environmental harm inside Iran and a further 100 outside.
