Iran threatens oil and AI facilities across seven Gulf countries if US and Israel renew attacks
Iran will strike oil facilities, undersea cables, datacentres and AI facilities across seven Gulf countries if the US and Israel launch a fresh attack, according to Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's supreme national security council.
The threat represents a significant escalation in tensions between Iran and the US-Israel alliance. Iranian media reported that Rezaei had declared: 'In the event of a war, cables, datacentres and artificial intelligence facilities could also be targeted. If the conflict breaks out again, we will have a broader plan.'
Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to Iran's hardline negotiator Mohammad Ghalibaf, characterized the potential conflict as an 'existential threat,' stating: 'We see the next conflict as an existential threat. The third war in two years means a threat to existence. Our strategy is 'zero red lines.''
Mohammadi further explained Iran's approach to any new conflict: 'We break the temporal and spatial dimensions of the conflict. The war will continue longer and in a wider geographical area than the enemy anticipates.'
Military Preparations
According to US media reports, military advisers have already drawn up a detailed list of targets for a fresh joint US-Israel assault on Iran, to be implemented after the US midterm elections on November 3. Trump's defense secretary Pete Hegseth met with Netanyahu in Israel on Monday to discuss the timing and purpose of a potential joint attack.
Netanyahu reportedly told Hegseth that he would prefer Iran to attack first. A US military buildup is expected to be completed by early November, with plans to station three aircraft carriers, thousands of marines, fighter jets and special operations forces in the region.
The naval services of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps claimed to have struck four commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, with three additional ships reportedly hitting mines. These incidents contributed to Brent crude oil trading at $113.4 a barrel, a recent high.
Regional Consequences
Reza Nasri, an international lawyer close to the Iranian foreign ministry, warned that a third war would have devastating regional consequences: 'A third wave of war would not stay contained. Power grids, desalination plants, refineries and ports across the region would burn. Tens of millions would be left without water or electricity, and a massive wave of refugees would move from Arab countries towards Europe.'
Hormuz would close completely, oil would spike, and the global economy would tip into recession. Israel's economy, already bled by mobilisation and missile fire, would not survive a prolonged war of attrition. And Trump would be trapped in a crisis that consumes the rest of his presidency and leaves a wreck for his successors.
Fars news agency, close to the IRGC, reported that Iran had issued directives to its military units stating that in the event of a new widespread war involving assassinations of Iranian officials and civilian deaths, the Iranian response would include political targets, not just military ones.
Diplomatic Efforts
Foreign ministers from three European countries, as well as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt, will meet in Istanbul on Friday to establish agreed policies on the Iranian, Yemeni and Palestinian crises. There is growing alarm that a further war is now the working assumption in both Tehran and Washington.
Mediators from Iran and Pakistan this week explored options for a ceasefire, including proposals that Iran receive billions in frozen assets in return for lifting its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, allowing UN weapons inspectors to view its bombed nuclear sites, and exporting its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to a third country.
Iran has offered to end the Hormuz blockade within seven days and start talks on its nuclear file, but only if preconditions are met first, including the lifting of US sanctions. Rezaei emphasized: 'There can be no arrangement in which Iran's economic lifelines come under attack while the economic architecture enabling those attacks is considered untouched and immune.'
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