DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran fired on targets across the Middle East, sparking multiple blazes at a Kuwaiti oil refinery, while American and Israeli airstrikes hit the Islamic Republic early Friday as the war neared the end of its fifth week unabated and the U.N. Security Council prepared to meet over Tehran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
Despite claims from the U.S. 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 neighbors, 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 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’s attacks on Gulf region energy infrastructure and its tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas transits in peacetime, have sent oil prices skyrocketing and is impacting global economies.
