By JAMIE BULLEN, LIVE COVERAGE EDITOR
Updated: 16:08 GMT, 18 March 2026
Oil prices have soared by 5% as Iran threatens to wage a ‘full scale economic war’ by attacking energy facilities across the Middle East in response to a missile strike at one of its gas plants.
Energy sites in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have been evacuated after Tehran warned it would hit them with strikes in ‘the coming hours’.
‘These centres have become direct and legitimate targets and will be targeted in the coming hours,’ the Islamic Republic warned.
Earlier, Israel said Iran’s intelligence minister Esmail Khatib has been killed in an overnight airstrike in Tehran marking the latest assassination to hit the regime.
Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz declared Khatib had been ‘eliminated’ and promised more ‘significant surprises’ today as the Israeli military hunts down high-ranking Iranian officials.
It comes as Iranians gather for the funeral of Ali Larijani, the assassinated security chief whose death was confirmed by Tehran last night. Larijani and military commander Gholamreza Soleimani were assassinated yesterday.
Follow the latest updates on the US-Israel war with Iran
Oil prices rise above $108 a barrel as missile strikes Iranian gas facility
Oil prices have surged today after Iran said the US and Israel struck one of its gas facilities.
Brent oil rose 5% to over $108 a barrel after Iran vowed to hit energy facilities throughout the Gulf in retaliation to what it said was an attack on a facility on the Gulf coast serving a massive gas field it shares with Qatar.
The three main US stock indexes all opened lower, and European stock markets reversed earlier gains.
Earlier today, oil prices fell slightly after Iraq said it had resumed limited oil exports through the Turkish port of Ceyhan, using a pipeline that avoids the effectively shut Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil flows.
The prices dropped despite Iran vowing revenge after Israel killed security chief Ali Larijani, a key force leading Iran since the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the first strikes of the war.
The latest flareup in violence appears to rule out any opening of the Strait of Hormuz – which in peacetime carries about a fifth of global oil and LNG trade – to shipping in the near term.
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