Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi sailed smoothly past a potential clash with Donald Trump over Iran on Thursday, though the US president whipped up a bit of a storm about Pearl Harbor.
Days after lashing out at US allies including Japan for failing to heed his calls to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Trump praised Tokyo's efforts related to the Middle East war in vague terms.
By Yomna Ehab and Jaidaa Taha
March 18 (Reuters) - Qatar's state oil giant QatarEnergy said on Wednesday that Iranian missile attacks on Ras Laffan, the site of the country's core LNG processing operations, caused "extensive damage", while the UAE shut gas facilities after intercepting missiles early on Thursday.
The attacks came hours after Iran issued evacuation warnings for several oil facilities across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, as it prepared retaliation following strikes on its own energy infrastructure in South Pars and Asaluyeh.
Iran targeted energy facilities across the Gulf and threatened further destructive attacks after a key gas field was hit, raising fears Thursday of a wider assault on fuel supplies that could jolt already rattled global markets.
The warning came after Israel killed the Islamic republic's intelligence chief Esmail Khatib, the latest in a string of strikes that have decimated its leadership since the war began nearly three weeks ago.
Tehran, following a strike on its South Pars field, said it would respond forcefully to any further attacks on its energy sector.
By Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali, Erin Banco and Gram Slattery
WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration is considering deploying thousands of U.S. troops to reinforce its operation in the Middle East, as the U.S. military prepares for possible next steps in its campaign against Iran, said a U.S. official and three people familiar with the matter.
The deployments could help provide Trump with additional options as he weighs expanding U.S. operations, with the Iran war well into its third week.
WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) - The Pentagon has asked the White House to approve a more than $200 billion request to the U.S. Congress to fund the war in Iran, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing a senior administration official.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Christian Martinez)
JERUSALEM, March 18 (Reuters) - Three Palestinian women were killed in an Iranian missile attack in the occupied West Bank late on Wednesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said, in the first deadly Iranian strike there — and the first to kill Palestinians — since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
The missile struck a hair salon in the town of Beit Awwa, southwest of Hebron, the Palestinian Authority's official news agency WAFA reported. Six women were wounded, one of them seriously.
Iranian missile attacks have killed three Palestinian women in the occupied West Bank and a foreign worker in central Israel, medics said Thursday.
Falling shrapnel struck a hair salon in the West Bank town of Beit Awa near Hebron late Wednesday, killing the three women, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, marking the first Palestinian deaths from Iranian attacks in the ongoing Middle East war.
The victims include 17-year-old Mays Ghazi Masalmeh, according to the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa.
US President Donald Trump attended the return Wednesday of six crew members killed when their refueling aircraft crashed during the Iran war.
It was the second time since the start of the conflict that Trump has traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the remains of US troops are returned to American soil.
The KC-135 plane crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, bringing the number of US troops killed in the joint US-Israeli operation to at least 13. A second aircraft damaged in the incident landed safely.
CAIRO, March 18 (Reuters) - The Iraqi armed group Kataib Hezbollah said on Wednesday it would suspend attacks on the U.S. embassy for five days with conditions.
The conditions listed by the group in a statement included Israel's halt of displacing and striking residents of Beirut's southern suburbs and a commitment to not shelling residential areas in Baghdad and other provinces.
(Reporting by Muayad Suadi, writing by Jaidaa Taha, editing by Chris Reese)
By Maggie Michael
TEHRAN, March 18 (Reuters) - Nearly three weeks of war on Iran have hit the usually teeming alleys of Tehran's grand bazaar, shutting many of the shops and driving up prices for Iranians already suffering from years of sanctions that have throttled the economy.
The days before the Persian new year and Muslim Eid al-Fitr holidays would normally fill the bazaar with traders racing to finalise deals and families shopping for gifts but, despite people browsing, fewer than usual were out buying on Wednesday.
