Cairo/ Kuwait city: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced on Saturday that it had launched a missile attack on Israel’s Haifa oil refinery, retaliating for earlier strikes by the United States and Israel on an oil depot near Tehran.
State media reported the IRGC’s action hours after air raid sirens echoed across the Haifa area. Iranian media outlets claimed the use of precision-guided Kheibar Shekan missiles targeted the facility in direct response to the Tehran incident.
However, no Israeli reports confirmed any direct hits on the refinery.
Tensions boiled over when US and Israeli forces struck an oil depot in southern Tehran — the first reported attack on Iran’s oil infrastructure since the war’s onset. Iranian’s official IRNA news agency, said: “An oil depot in southern Tehran was targeted by the US and Zionist regime.”
The site lies close to a major oil refinery, but ILNA news agency clarified that “the refinery’s facilities were not damaged in the military attacks.”
The Haifa refinery processes much of Israel’s fuel needs and has faced prior threats from Iran-aligned militants.
Meanwhile, Kuwait’s national oil company, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), on Saturday announced precautionary measures amid the chaos. Citing “ongoing aggression by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the State of Kuwait, including Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz,” KPC implemented “a precautionary reduction in crude oil production and refining throughput as part of its risk management and business continuity strategy.”
The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow chokepoint between Iran and Gulf states, handles about 20% of global oil trade, making any disruption a global concern. KPC stated the cuts would be “reviewed as the situation develops”.
