Kuwaiti Tanker Full of Oil Struck Off Dubai Day After Trump’s Threats

Kuwaiti Tanker Full of Oil Struck Off Dubai Day After Trump’s Threats The vessel caught fire and sustained damage, its owner said on Tuesday, adding that there was the potential for an oil spill in surrounding waters. On Monday, President Trump warned Iran that without a deal he would order attacks on infrastructure targets. - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times - David Guttenfelder/The New York Times - Reuters - Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times - Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times - Reuters - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times Follow live updates on the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran and the fallout in the Mideast. A Kuwaiti oil tanker laden with oil erupted in flames after it was attacked early Tuesday while anchored off the coast of Dubai, the Kuwaiti authorities said. The attack, which the Kuwaitis blamed on Iran, came a day after President Trump injected new uncertainty into global energy markets by threatening again to begin obliterating Iranian targets if Tehran’s new leaders did not agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The Kuwaiti Petroleum Corporation said that the tanker, called Al-Salmi, had been fully loaded with crude oil when struck in what it called an Iranian attack. The vessel’s hull sustained damage, the company said, adding that the damage could potentially lead to an oil spill in surrounding waters. No injuries were reported among the tanker’s 24 crew members, the media office of Dubai’s government said. It added that the Dubai authorities were responding to an episode involving a drone and a Kuwaiti oil tanker that caught fire in Emirati waters. Maritime firefighting teams had been working to bring the fire under control and later said it had been extinguished. Iran did not immediately respond to reports of the attack. The maritime intelligence company Tanker Trackers said that, according to its tracking information, two million barrels of crude were on board the vessel — about 1.2 million from Saudi Arabia and about 800,000 from Kuwait. The attack came as Mr. Trump has sought to pressure Iran to yield to his demands and end its chokehold over the strait, a vital shipping route for oil and natural gas, by alternating threats of destruction with unverified claims of diplomatic breakthroughs. Iran has denied holding substantive talks with the United States, and has rejected the Trump administration’s conditions as unreasonable. The mixed messages led to another nervous day for energy markets: The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, briefly rose to $116 a barrel on Monday before falling back. The war, now in its fifth week and rattling much of the Middle East, continued to rage. In Israel, the military said it had destroyed more than 100 high-rise buildings in the Beirut area, claiming they were being used as command structures by Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia. And NATO said its air defenses had shot down a ballistic missile that had entered Turkish airspace, the fourth such interception since the start of the war. As Mr. Trump strains to find an end to a conflict he originally mused would last four to five weeks, he has alternately narrowed his aims — arguing on Sunday that “regime change” in Iran had already been achieved — and raised the prospect of escalation, ordering thousands more U.S. troops to the Middle East, including Marines and Special Operations Forces. His latest threats came in a social media post on Monday morning in which he claimed there had been “great progress” in talks with Tehran but warned that if the negotiations failed to produce an agreement he would order the bombardment of Iranian power plants, oil production infrastructure and, potentially, desalination plants. Experts have noted that attacking power and water plants can be considered a war crime. Here’s what else we’re covering: Toll vote: A parliamentary committee in Iran approved a plan to impose tolls on ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz, the semiofficial news agency Fars reported on Monday. The plan, which would also ban transit by American and Israeli ships, requires further approval by the full Parliament. The strait is considered an international waterway, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said tolls would be illegal. University threat: Iranian officials have condemned U.S. military attacks on universities across the country and warned of possible retaliation against U.S. universities in the region. Read more › Lebanon: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered Israeli forces to increase the territory they control in southern Lebanon, adding to fears among many Lebanese of a long-term military occupation of the area. Lebanon’s president has denounced Israel’s campaign there against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia. Peacekeepers killed: Two United Nations peacekeepers were killed in southern Lebanon on Monday when their convoy was “struck by an explosion of undetermined origin,” according to a U.N. report seen by The New York Times. A day earlier, an Indonesian peacekeeper was killed in a separate attack amid clashes between Israel and Hezbollah. Casualties: The Human Rights Activists News Agency said at least 1,574 civilians had been killed, including 236 children, in Iran since the war began a month ago. Lebanon’s health ministry said, more than 1,230 Lebanese had been killed as of Sunday, with more than 3,543 others wounded, since the latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began. In Iran’s attacks across the Middle East, at least 50 people have been killed in Gulf nations. In Israel, 17 have been killed as of Friday. The American death toll stands at 13 service members, with hundreds of others wounded. There was no oil leakage from the loaded Kuwaiti tanker that erupted in flames after it was attacked early Tuesday in the waters off Dubai, the authorities in the United Arab Emirates said. The fire was extinguished earlier and no injuries were reported, they said. The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said the tanker was struck during an Iranian attack. Price of Brent Crude Oil Gulf countries reported more missile and drone attacks on Tuesday. Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry said its forces intercepted eight missiles, most of which were launched toward Riyadh. Kuwait’s army said it responded to drone and missile attacks. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait did not say where these drones and missiles came from. The United Arab Emirates’ defense ministry said its forces responded to drones and missiles from Iran, and authorities in Sharjah said a drone targeted a building belonging to Thuraya, an Emirati telecommunications company, on Monday. There were no reported injuries, and it was unclear whether the building was damaged. The authorities in Bahrain said they had activated warning sirens but did not say what triggered the alarm. The Israeli military issued a warning early Tuesday to the residents of Tehran’s Vardavard area to stay in their homes, saying that it would be attacking military infrastructure in that area. It did not offer details about its targets in the notice, which it posted on social media. The Fars news agency, which is linked to Iran’s security forces, reported that explosions were heard in parts of Tehran on Tuesday, without naming the areas. The Israeli military said early Tuesday that it had detected missiles launched from Iran toward Israel. It said its air defenses were working to intercept the missiles. Authorities in Dubai responded to a fire in an abandoned house in the residential area of Al Badia, which was caused by a fallen shrapnel fragment from an air defense interception, the government’s media office reported early on Tuesday. Four individuals near the house had minor injuries, the government said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will hold a news conference on Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. Eastern, the Pentagon said on Monday. The last time the two leaders took questions from reporters on the state of the war against Iran was on March 19. A Kuwaiti crude carrier was “directly attacked” by Iranian forces while anchored at the Dubai port in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait’s state news agency said Tuesday morning, citing the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. The Dubai authorities responded to an episode involving a drone and a Kuwaiti oil tanker that caught fire in Emirati waters, the government’s media office said. No injuries were reported among the tanker’s 24 crew members, whose safety had been secured, the media office said. Maritime firefighting teams had been working to bring the fire under control and later said it had been extinguished. The Kuwaiti Petroleum Corporation said in a statement that the tanker, called Al-Salmi, was fully laden when struck in what it said had been an Iranian attack. The vessel’s hull sustained damage, the company said, adding that the fire and damage had the potential to cause an oil spill in surrounding waters. Measures were being taken to put out the fire and mitigate any potential environmental damage, it said. The maritime intelligence company Tanker Trackers said that, according to its tracking information, two million barrels of crude were on board the vessel — about 1.2 million from Saudi Arabia and about 800,000 from Kuwait. The tanker “was done loading a month ago,” the tanker tracking company said of the vessel on social media. The Al-Salmi is a massive vessel that is nearly 1,100 feet long and was built in 2011 by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering in South Korea. Iran did not immediately respond to reports of the attack. The Kuwaiti military said it was dealing with hostile missile and drone attacks even as news of the tanker attack in Emirati waters was emerging. On Friday, an Iranian strike injured 12 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, two of them seriously, in an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. And on Saturday, multiple drones struck the Kuwait International Airport, causing significant damage to its radar system, the country’s aviation authorities said. There were no reported casualties. Those strikes were part of a series of attacks recently against Israel and Gulf countries in the past several days that showed Iran retains enough missiles and drones to destabilize the region and inflict a punishing cost on its foes. The attack on the Kuwaiti tanker comes as traffic in and around the Strait of Hormuz has come to a practical standstill amid Iranian retaliatory attacks on commercial vessels in regional waters. In March so far, fewer than 150 tankers have traversed the strait amid the attacks, according to data from S&P Market Intelligence. Normally, about 140 ships travel through the vital waterway every day, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which tracks security at sea. Before Tuesday’s attack, the U.K.M.T.O. said in a report on Monday that it had received 24 reports of suspicious incidents affecting vessels operating in and around the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman since Feb. 28 when the United States and Israel began attacking Iran. President Trump on Monday renewed his threat to begin “completely obliterating” Iranian power plants and oil production facilities if the country’s leaders did not agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz “immediately.” Mr. Trump has sought to pressure Iran to yield to his demands and end its chokehold over the strait, a vital shipping route for oil and natural gas, by alternating threats of destruction with unverified claims of diplomatic breakthroughs. Iran has denied holding substantive talks with the United States and has rejected the Trump administration’s conditions as unreasonable. The mixed messages led to another nervous day for energy and stock markets: The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, briefly rose to $116 a barrel on Monday before falling back to around $114 a barrel, and the S&P 500 closed down about 0.4 percent. Here’s what else happened in the war: Iran: The foreign ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, said that Iran had received proposals for talks with the United States through intermediaries, including Pakistan, but maintained that Iran had held no negotiations — and would not do so while the military campaign continues. The war has fractured the Iranian government, complicating its ability to make decisions, according to officials familiar with U.S. and Western intelligence assessments. Still, a parliamentary committee backed a proposal to impose tolls on ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz, which is treated under maritime law as an international waterway where ships are guaranteed passage. Lebanon: The Israeli military said it had destroyed more than 100 high-rise buildings in the area of the capital, Beirut, used by the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Two U.N. peacekeepers were killed when their convoy was “struck by an explosion of undetermined origin” in southern Lebanon. An Israeli strike on a Lebanese army checkpoint in the country’s south killed one soldier and injured several others, the Lebanese military said in a statement. More than 1,200 people in Lebanon have been killed in the nearly monthlong conflict, and more than a million others have been displaced, according to Lebanese authorities. Persian Gulf: The Abu Dhabi campus of New York University has closed until further notice after Iran warned on Saturday that American universities with outposts in the Gulf were “legitimate targets” in retaliation for strikes on Iranian universities during the war. Israel: An oil refinery in the northern city of Haifa was struck during an Iranian missile attack on Monday morning, according to Israel’s fire and rescue service, and falling shrapnel hit a large fuel container fuel, igniting a fire. There were no reports of casualties. Turkey: NATO air defenses shot down a ballistic missile fired from Iran that had entered Turkish airspace, Turkey’s defense ministry said in a social media post. It was the fourth time that the military alliance, of which Turkey is a member, has reported intercepting an Iranian missile in or near Turkey’s skies since the start of the war in Iran. United States: Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said the president “would be quite interested in calling” on Arab countries to help pay for the costs associated with the Iran war. “Certainly it’s an idea that I know that he has and something that I think you’ll hear more from him on,” she said. At least six civilians were killed and 21 others wounded on Monday in attacks across Iran over the past 24 hours, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, HRANA, which reported 422 strikes across 21 provinces as of 6 p.m. Eastern. The group said that strikes had damaged residential areas, including mixed-use buildings in Sanandaj, the provincial capital of Kurdistan Province in western Iran. Since the conflict began on Feb. 28, HRANA has recorded at least 1,574 civilian deaths, including 236 children. The Israeli military said in a statement late Monday that it was “aware of the reports” that United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon had been killed or injured in the past two days. The military said it was “thoroughly” reviewing the circumstances and added that the episodes had occurred “in an active combat area,” where it was operating against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, not against the people of Lebanon, its army or international peacekeepers. “It should not be assumed” the peacekeepers were harmed by the Israeli military, the statement said. Iran’s Parliament on Monday approved an initial plan to institute a toll in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Fars, Iran’s semiofficial news agency, where about one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas traverses the vital waterway. The move to charge ships in what is normally one of the world’s busiest international waterways is the latest threat by Iran to impose control over it amid the monthlong war that has almost halted all traffic in the Persian Gulf. President Trump has ratcheted up threats to bombard Iran’s energy infrastructure if the country does not end its stranglehold on the strait. The passageway has become a flashpoint of the war. In recent weeks, Iran has attacked vessels in the waterway, and the United States has demanded that Iran allow ships of all nations to transit the narrow strait. In order for the toll to take effect, the full Iranian Parliament has to adopt the measure, according to Fars. But a unilateral act by the Iranians would not mean it is legal and could leave the country further alienated on the world stage. “Iran could find itself very isolated,” said James Kraska, a professor of international maritime law at the U.S. Naval War College and Harvard. States have been reserved in their response so far, he said, but “I think eventually it would not end well for Iran.” Though the straight lies within the territorial waters of both Iran and Oman at its narrowest point, the Iranians effectively control the strait right now. Under maritime law, however, it is treated as an international waterway where ships are guaranteed passage. While some ships have managed to make their way through the strait in the past week or so with permission from Iran, often using a route that takes them through Iranian waters around the small Iranian island of Larak, there are about 2,000 ships and about 20,000 mariners stuck in regional waters, according to the International Maritime Organization, and oil prices have skyrocketed amid the conflict. Fewer than 150 ships have transited through the strait this month, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That number is about the same that would have passed daily before the war, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which tracks security at sea. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called the toll plan illegal and “unacceptable.” It was not immediately clear how the Iranians would impose a toll system on the waterway, but Tasnim, a publication affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, estimated such a scheme could generate about $100 billion annually, exceeding Iran’s yearly oil revenue. One proposed method would allow Iran to charge $2 million for each vessel passing through or into part of the strait as a “special security service.” Such a service could generate about $280 million a day, according to Tasnim. Another potential approach would be modeled on the fee system for transiting the Suez Canal, which is based on a vessel’s cargo capacity, and is estimated to generate about $56 million a day and about $20 billion to $25 billion annually, Tasnim reported. A new Army weapon emerged from relative obscurity after one struck a sports hall and school in southern Iran early in the U.S.-Israeli war, according to weapons experts and a visual analysis by The New York Times. Local officials cited in Iranian media said the strike and others nearby killed at least 21 people, including young girls playing volleyball. That weapon is the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM (pronounced like “prism”). The PrSM is barely out of the prototype phase, and the Army has not yet created an entry for it in the military’s supply system or given it an official nomenclature — much less disclosed details like its maximum range, its accuracy or the amount of explosives it carries. Here is what we know about it. When was the Precision Strike Missile developed? The PrSM debuted just four months after the demise of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019. It would have been banned under that treaty, which prohibited the United States and Russia from fielding ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles capable of ranges between 311 and 3,420 miles. The missile finished its prototype testing and entered low-rate production less than a year ago. It will replace the Army’s ATACMS missile, which was developed in the 1980s and could strike targets about 190 miles away. The PrSM is expected to fly more than twice as far. Who makes it? Lockheed Martin makes the PrSM at a facility in Camden, Ark. According to a news release, the company has 115,000 square feet of factory space and 400 employees devoted to its production. How many of them have been made? The exact number is not publicly known. On March 10, a spokeswoman for Lockheed referred questions about the number of PrSMs it has delivered to the Army. The Army declined to provide any data on its inventory or production rate. How much has the Pentagon spent on them so far? In September 2022, the Pentagon announced it was purchasing 54 of the new missiles for $77.4 million, or about $1.4 million each. In the 2023 fiscal year budget, the Army requested an additional $472 million to purchase 120 more of them. Lockheed announced it had delivered the first operational Precision Strike Missiles to the Army in December 2023. Months later, the company received an additional $219 million from the Defense Department for the weapon. And in March 2025, it was awarded $5 billion more. Where have they been tested? A prototype of the Precision Strike Missile was first launched at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in December 2019. Since then, 12 additional test launches have been conducted in New Mexico and California. The most recent test was announced on March 12. How are they launched? The missiles are packed in containers commonly called “pods” that each contain two PrSMs. The Cold War-era M270 vehicle, which is based on the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle and runs on tracks, can carry two pods at a time — for a total of four Precision Strike Missiles. The newer M142 HIMARS, a lighter-weight six-wheeled truck, can carry just one pod at a time. How have they been used in the war with Iran? On Feb. 28, U.S. Central Command, which directs military operations in the Middle East, showcased some of the weapons used during the first 24 hours of the war with Iran — one of which was a PrSM being launched from a HIMARS vehicle in an apparently desert environment. Central Command said the PrSMs were part of a barrage of munitions that were fired from outside the range of Iran’s defensive weapons. Immediately after firing, the vehicles typically drive to another location to avoid potential enemy counterattacks and then reload. It is unclear where U.S. forces have launched PrSM missiles from during the war, although U.S.-made HIMARS vehicles have launched short-range ballistic missiles from Bahrain into Iran. And a HIMARS unit from the Wisconsin National Guard is currently deployed to Kuwait. How important is this missile to the Pentagon? Based on the dollar amounts of contracts signed between the Defense Department and Lockheed, it appears to be very important to the Pentagon’s future war plans. On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced it had entered into an agreement with Lockheed to accelerate production of PrSMs “on a wartime footing.” The same day, the company said that agreement and the $5 billion contract that preceded it would allow Lockheed to “quadruple PrSM production capacity.” Lockheed plans to develop four different PrSM “increments,” or variants, which the company has said will increase the missile’s maximum range and eventually give it the ability to hit moving objects, including ships at sea. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, said Monday afternoon that it had received proposals for talks with the United States through intermediaries, including Pakistan. In a social media post, Mr. Baghaei maintained that Iran had held no negotiations with the United States since the U.S.-Israeli attacks began on Feb. 28 and would not while the military campaign continues. Pakistan has circulated messages between Iran and the United States in an effort to assemble peace talks in the capital of Islamabad. The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has fractured the Iranian government, complicating its ability to make decisions and coordinate larger retaliatory attacks, according to officials familiar with U.S. and Western intelligence assessments. Several dozen Iranian leaders and their deputies have been killed since the war began four weeks ago. Those who survive have had difficulty communicating and are unable to meet in person, for fear of having their calls intercepted by the United States or Israel and being targeted in an airstrike. While Iran’s security and military agencies continue to function, the government’s ability to plan new strategies or policies has been weakened. The Trump administration has said a new government is in charge in Iran and has pressed it to make a quick deal. But the more degraded Iranian government decision making becomes, the more difficult it will be for it to negotiate with American envoys or make significant concessions. With different leaders in place, Iranian negotiators may have little knowledge about what their government is willing to concede, or even whom precisely to ask. What is more, American officials say hard-liners within the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have become more influential in Iran, exerting more power than the religious leadership nominally in charge. But whether someone emerges to make a deal, and whether that person can persuade other officials to agree to it, is far from clear. Former American officials say Iran will make a deal when it suffers enough economic pain from the war. While the damage has been severe, Iran may not yet feel as though it is losing, according to current and former officials. On Monday, President Trump threatened to expand the war if a deal was not quickly reached, suggesting that U.S. forces might try to take Kharg Island, Iran’s main hub for oil exports. Iran’s compromised communications have caused confusion and paranoia among the surviving government leaders, who fear that their calls and messages are being intercepted by Israeli intelligence, officials say. As a result, they have been reluctant to make calls, according to officials briefed on Western intelligence assessments. Israel began the war with a strike on the leadership compound that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and much of the national security leadership. A number of lower-level officials seen by the United States as more pragmatic were also killed in the strike, U.S. officials said. Mr. Trump himself made reference in interviews that potential candidates to lead Iran had been killed. The attack severed many connections between security, military and civilian policymakers, according to Western officials and others briefed on government assessments. It is unclear how much control the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is exerting over the government. He has not been seen in public, and U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies believe he was wounded during the war. Some intelligence officials believe that Mr. Khamenei may be more of a figurehead, and that the surviving leadership of the Revolutionary Guards is making the decisions. A senior U.S. military official said Iranian command and control has been badly degraded by American and Israeli strikes. Still, the official and a senior intelligence official said, before the war Iran built a decentralized control system that allows local commanders in different regions of the country to make their own strike decisions, even in the absence of direct day-to-day orders from Tehran. The United States is targeting those local commanders, the senior military official said. Nevertheless, Iran has proved it can still launch substantial offensive strikes like the missile and drone attack at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia last week. But the retaliatory attacks have not been as large, or as effective, as they might have been because of the problems in the Iranian government. Given the decimation of its leadership, former U.S. officials say, Iran has been unable to launch larger barrages of missiles that could more easily overwhelm defenses. Instead, regional commands have had to muster counterattacks without coordinating with one another. Mr. Trump has expressed frustration with what he has portrayed as mixed messaging from the Iranian leadership. “The Iranian negotiators are very different and ‘strange,’” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Thursday. “They are ‘begging’ us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only ‘looking at our proposal.’” Over the weekend, Mr. Trump said the campaign of airstrikes had resulted in new leadership in Iran and again claimed progress in talks. “It’s a whole different group of people,” Mr. Trump said on Sunday. “So I would consider that regime change, and frankly, they’ve been very reasonable.” In a social media post on Monday, Mr. Trump offered optimistic assessments of the current government but also threatened to expand the war by targeting energy and civilian infrastructure. He said that if a deal was not reached shortly, and if the Strait of Hormuz remained closed, he would attack Iran’s electrical generation plants, oil wells and desalination plants. People briefed on intelligence assessments said Mr. Trump’s frustration reflected the inability of the current Iranian government to coordinate a response and make a decision about the American peace proposals. Israeli officials have said the communication problems in Iran are not dissimilar to the problems with hostage negotiations during the Gaza war. In Gaza, offers from the United States and Israel went to Hamas leaders in Qatar, and then were conveyed in written notes to leaders in Gaza, a time-consuming process that introduced confusion. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting. Stocks took a dip Monday, with the S&P 500 falling about 0.4 percent at close. The index remains on track for its worst monthly performance since March last year. The price of Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, was about $114 a barrel in the afternoon, up more than 50 percent since the start of the war on Feb 28. A parliamentary committee in Iran has approved a plan to impose tolls on ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz, the semiofficial news agency Fars reported Monday. The plan also bans transit by American and Israeli ships. The plan requires further approval by the full parliament. The strait is considered an international waterway, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said an imposition of tolls would be illegal. Iran has not only rejected American demands to open the strait. It is also asserting sovereignty over it. More important, Iran can, in effect, control the movement of ships through the strait and has attacked ships trying to make passage. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said the president “would be quite interested in calling” on Arab countries to help pay for the costs associated with the Iran war. “I won’t get ahead of him on that,” she said. “But certainly it’s an idea that I know that he has and something that I think you’ll hear more from him on.” Iranian officials have condemned a string of U.S. military attacks on several universities across the country and warned of possible retaliation against U.S. universities in the region. The attacks on Iranian academic institutions come as the country’s critical infrastructure increasingly becomes a target in the U.S.-Israeli air war against Iran. Strikes on energy installations have plunged parts of the capital into darkness and enveloped it in toxic fumes. Other recent attacks hit a water reservoir in southwestern Iran and a steel plant in central Isfahan, and set fire to parts of a petrochemical complex in northwestern Tabriz. The semiofficial news agency Fars reported that 20 universities and dormitories had been attacked in the monthlong war. “Israel and its partner in crime believe that knowledge can be bombed away,” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said in a statement that only indirectly referred to the United States — part of Iranian officials’ efforts to portray Washington as serving Israeli interests by starting a war with Iran. Intentional attacks against educational institutions may be considered a war crime under international law. Israeli and U.S. military spokesmen did not immediately respond to a request for comment on four separate university attacks in the past two weeks. But on Monday, Israel claimed strikes on a university that it said was being used for military research. On Sunday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps warned of possible retaliation. “We advise all staff, professors and students of American universities in the region, as well as residents in their surrounding areas, to keep a distance of at least one kilometer from these universities to ensure their safety,” said a statement published by Tasnim, a semiofficial news outlet affiliated with the Guards. Many American universities in the region had already moved most of their courses online because of the war. But some campuses took further security measures after the warnings. The American University of Beirut said that while it had “no evidence of direct threats,” it had decided to move all classes online for Monday and Tuesday, and it had suspended the few exams and laboratory sessions still being held in person. Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region — considered one of Washington’s most important regional security allies — closed not only American and international universities, but also all of its schools in response. Videos posted on March 28-29 showed the aftermath of a recent attack on the Iran University of Science and Technology in Tehran, in which an entire building was reduced to rubble, while other classrooms were littered with shards of glass and debris. Another strike on a research institute at the Isfahan University of Technology damaged several buildings and injured four staff members, according to the semiofficial news agency Mehr. Other universities that have been hit, according to United Students, a group run by student activists, are the faculty of pharmacy at Shiraz University, in the south, and both the science and technology campus as well as the veterinary hospital campus at Urmia University in northeastern Iran. Some universities that have been attacked were the sites of large demonstrations against the government just days before the war began, as students defied a bloody crackdown on protests that had already killed thousands earlier this year. On Monday, Israel claimed strikes on the Imam Hossein University, which it called the “main military university” of the Revolutionary Guards. It said the university contained wind tunnels used to test and develop ballistic missiles, as well as a chemistry center used for research and development of chemical weapons. Hwaida Saad and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting. As lawmakers leave Washington without reaching a deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency remains shut down even as the Iran war has raised cyber threat levels. The D.H.S. agency, known as CISA, is tasked with defending the nation’s infrastructure against cyberattacks. “CISA is shut down, but our adversaries are not,” Nick Andersen, CISA’s acting director, told a Congressional hearing last week. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, jumped to $116 a barrel on Monday before falling back in midday trading. It remains more than 50 percent higher than before the war in Iran. The S&P 500 gained slightly after five straight weeks of declines. The index remains on track for its worst monthly performance since March 2025, when inflation and tariff worries rattled investors. The Israeli military said it had destroyed more than 100 high-rise buildings in the Beirut area since launching strikes there earlier this month. Israel said the buildings were used by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia, as command-and-control centers for attacks against Israel. Weeks of Israeli strikes in the Lebanese capital and its suburbs have caused extensive damage and killed large numbers of civilians, including children. More than 1,200 people in Lebanon have been killed in the nearly monthlong conflict, and more than a million others have been displaced, according to Lebanese authorities. NATO air defenses shot down a ballistic missile fired from Iran that had entered Turkish airspace, Turkey’s defense ministry said in a post on social media. It was fourth time that the military alliance, of which Turkey is a member, has reported intercepting an Iranian missile in or near Turkey’s skies since the start of the war in Iran. The defense ministry did not say what Monday’s missile’s target was nor where it was intercepted. A NATO spokeswoman confirmed the interception. A successful attack on a NATO member could escalate the war in Iran, given the alliance’s mutual defense clause, although Turkish officials have not called for the clause’s activation. Iranian officials have denied that their country has targeted Turkey. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with ABC News that the “clerical regime” that has led Iran for decades is the foundational problem with the country, reiterating his hardline stance on the Iranian leadership in recent months. He said if there is new leadership that has taken power during the war that has a more positive “vision” for Iran’s future, he welcomes that, but also said the United States is prepared for “the possibility, maybe even the probability,” that that is not the case. Rubio’s comments came after President Trump said that “regime change” in Iran had been achieved because so many of its top leaders had been killed in U.S.-Israeli attacks. Two U.N. peacekeepers traveling in a convoy were killed when it was “struck by an explosion of undetermined origin” in southern Lebanon on Monday and several other peacekeepers were injured, according to a U.N. report seen by The New York Times. The blast came a day after the organization’s secretary general, António Guterres, condemned the killing of an Indonesian member of the peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, where Israel and Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant group, are engaged in escalating clashes as Israeli forces expand their ground invasion there. About 10,000 U.N. peacekeepers are stationed in the region as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, which was established in 1978 during Lebanon’s civil war. The internal report seen by The Times indicated that the U.N. peacekeeping force did not immediately know who was responsible for the latest strike and deaths. There was no immediate comment from Israel, Hezbollah or UNIFIL. The other strike was also being investigated, UNIFIL said in a statement. In the latest explosion on Monday, a U.N. convoy that was heading between two UNIFIL bases was struck, destroying the lead vehicle and killing the peacekeepers. Several others were injured, one of them seriously, according to the report. The explosion, which again affected UNIFIL’s Indonesian battalion, occurred near the southern Lebanese town of Bani Haiyyan, the report said. The three deaths over the past 24 hours were the first in a combat incident since a conflict that was sparked when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in 2023 in support of its Palestinian ally in Gaza, Hamas. That war ended in a fragile cease-fire, but erupted again this month after Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in solidarity with Tehran, opening a new front in the broader U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Israel has responded with a large-scale bombing campaign and ground invasion that has killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon and displaced well over a million others, according to Lebanese authorities. Hezbollah has responded by attacking Israeli troops as they advance into southern Lebanon and keeping up rocket fire across the border into Israel, in a conflict that shows little sign of abating. President Trump threatened on Monday to “completely” destroy Kharg Island, Iran’s main hub for oil exports, and other key energy sites in the country, if it did not agree to a peace deal and end its de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Mr. Trump said on social media that the United States had made “great progress” in discussions with “A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME” in Iran, and that a deal would probably be “shortly reached.” But he also reiterated threats of extreme destruction against Iranian targets that he said the U.S. military had “purposefully not yet ‘touched,’” since it started bombing Iran alongside Israel over a month ago. Those targets included Kharg Island, electricity plants, oil wells and “possibly all desalinization plants,” he said. Mr. Trump has made fluctuating and freewheeling public comments on the war, often alternating between claims of diplomatic progress and threats of stronger military action. In an interview published on Sunday, Mr. Trump had suggested that the United States might try to take over Kharg Island, which has emerged as a potential target for the U.S. military. “Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t,” Mr. Trump told The Financial Times. “We have a lot of options.” He shrugged off Iran’s ability to protect the island, a territory about one-third the size of Manhattan that is in the Persian Gulf, about 20 miles offshore. “I don’t think they have any defense,” Mr. Trump said. “We could take it very easily.” Mr. Trump has said that he has no plans to send ground troops into Iran, but he has left himself some wiggle room. There are now over 50,000 American troops in the Middle East — too small a number for any major land invasion, military analysts say, but enough to give Mr. Trump new options to escalate the war, or attempt an operation like seizing Kharg island. The U.S. bombarded the island this month, focusing on its military installations while leaving its oil export facilities untouched. An invasion would be a much riskier operation and would likely roil global energy markets even further. Even if U.S. troops were able to take control of the island — a scenario that Mr. Trump has envisioned since the late 1980s — maintaining control of it would be costly and difficult. Mr. Trump told The Financial Times that American troops would have “to be there for a while.” Airstrikes against Kharg Island’s oil infrastructure, or seizing the island outright, would cripple Iran’s ability to export oil. That would risk sending energy prices higher, especially if Iran retaliates by striking other infrastructure in the Middle East or oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz — which would remain a powerful source of leverage. Helene Cooper, Anton Troianovski, Rebecca F. Elliott and Peter Eavis contributed reporting. Spain has barred U.S. warplanes from flying through its airspace en route to strikes on Iran, the country’s defense minister said on Monday. The minister, Margarita Robles, said the restriction had been in place since the start of the war. Previously, Spanish officials had only publicly announced a ban on U.S. aircraft using Spanish air bases as a launchpad for attacks. Flight-tracking data on Monday showed that U.S. aircraft were still using Spanish bases before flying on to destinations other than Iran. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt said that President Trump was the only person who could end the war with Iran. In opening remarks at an international energy conference in Cairo on Monday, he addressed Mr. Trump directly, saying: “I speak to you on behalf of myself, humanity, and lovers of peace — and you, Mr. President, are a lover of peace. Please, Mr. President, help us stop this war. And you are capable of doing so.” Egypt, along with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, has been working on mediation efforts to try to end the war. The four countries’ foreign ministers met in Islamabad on Sunday, but no results from the meeting have been announced. President Trump said on social media that the United States was in “serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran,” adding that “great progress” had been made in the talks. But he also warned that if Iran did not reach a deal with the U.S. and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil shipping route, then the U.S. would respond by “blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!).” Iranian leaders have not publicly confirmed that they are participating in direct talks with U.S. officials, saying only that intermediaries have been passing messages between the two sides. President Trump on Sunday suggested that “regime change” in Iran had been achieved because so many of its top leaders have been killed in U.S.-Israeli attacks, as he sought to show progress in a war that has entered a second month. Though Iran’s clerical and military establishment remain in control of the country, and its most hard-line factions may even have emerged strengthened, Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “We’ve had regime change.” “The one regime was decimated, destroyed, they’re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead,” he said. He suggested that Iran had moved onto its “third regime,” and that American negotiators were speaking to “a whole different group of people,” who have “been very reasonable.” Iranian leaders have not confirmed that they are participating in talks with U.S. officials, and their de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for oil shipments, has rattled global markets. The United States and Israel began attacking Iran on Feb. 28, killing its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and many top Iranian leaders. But a war that Mr. Trump initially predicted would last weeks and would create the conditions for Iran’s elite military forces to “surrender to the people” has shown little sign of letting up as more civilians are killed, and as Iran’s retaliatory attacks disrupt daily life across the Middle East. Though the United States and Israel have killed a string of Iran’s leaders after Ayatollah Khamenei, its pillars of power — chiefly top clerics and the hardened officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — remain in place. Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the slain supreme leader, was chosen to succeed him. And there has been no sign of any popular Iranian movement to overthrow the government, as Mr. Trump had once signaled was an objective. Some Iran experts and politicians from the country’s reformist movement argue that the killings have ushered more hard-line figures into top posts. The slain head of Iran’s National Security Council, Ali Larijani, was seen as more pragmatic than the man appointed to replace him, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr. The new commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, is also seen as more radical than his predecessor, and the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader was seen as a victory by hard-liners against backers of more moderate candidates. Mr. Trump’s comments on Sunday appeared to be another sign of him scaling back his objectives in the war. The Iranian leaders the United States was dealing with now, he said, are “different people than anybody’s dealt with before.” “I would consider that regime change,” he said, adding, “You can’t do much better than that.” Since the start, Mr. Trump has not laid out a clear objective for the war with Iran, nor has he been explicit about what victory would look like. Weeks before ordering the bombing campaign, he was asked by reporters if he wanted regime change in Iran. He said it seemed “like that would be the best thing that could happen.” But by mid-March, Mr. Trump did not mention regime change at all when he announced that he was considering “winding down” military operations in Iran. In recent days, he has appeared to grow frustrated with the extent to which the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign has failed to keep the war from spiraling across the region. One key irritant is that Iranian attacks have all but sealed off the Strait of Hormuz, sending the price of oil climbing by 56 percent since the war began. Erika Solomon contributed reporting. President Trump said on Sunday night that Iran had agreed to release 20 more cargo ships of oil through the Strait of Hormuz starting on Monday, in what the president insisted was a “tribute” to the United States and a “sign of respect.” Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington from a weekend spent in Florida, Mr. Trump cast Iran’s decision to allow free passage for the ships as a sign that negotiations were underway toward ending the military conflict in the region, in what he said were direct and indirect talks. But to many outside experts, Iran’s ability to turn the spigot of oil deliveries on and off simply demonstrates its power to control the narrow, 21-mile-wide passage. Previously Mr. Trump had said he did not care much about what went through the strait because most of the oil goes to customers in Asia and Europe, and very little to the United States. It was not clear where the 20 cargo ships were headed. China and India are major buyers of Iranian oil. The ships may also belong to Gulf Arab states. Last week, the Iranians allowed about 10 ships to transit the strait, a development that Mr. Trump also hailed as a sign of progress. The movement of the oil is an issue that has arisen only after the United States and Israel began their military action on Feb. 28. The core of the negotiations center on the future of Iran’s nuclear program, the size and range of its arsenal of missiles and, based on Mr. Trump’s earlier goals, the freedom of the Iranian people to protest without being shot in the streets by the government. Mr. Trump insisted to the reporters, however, that he had already achieved “regime change” in Iran because the leaders in place when the attacks on the country began have been killed, starting with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. “I think we’ve had regime change,’’ said Mr. Trump. “It truly is regime change.” But the government, led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the nation’s top clerics, remains in place. Only the leaders have changed. Mr. Trump made no announcements of a face-to-face meeting between American and Iranian negotiators. Last week, the administration had hoped to send Vice President JD Vance to Pakistan, to lead a delegation to discuss peace terms with Iranian leaders. But the Iranians have insisted that the United States must agree to reparations for attacking the country, acknowledge Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and lift sanctions imposed by a series of American presidents.