By Lisa Baertlein

LONG BEACH, Calif., March 2 (Reuters) - Container ships account for roughly 100 of the 750 ships backed up around the Strait of Hormuz following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, Jeremy Nixon, CEO of container carrier Ocean Network Express (ONE), said on Monday.

"About 10% of the container ship global fleet is caught up in this," Nixon said at a container shipping industry conference in Long Beach, California.

CAIRO, March 2 (Reuters) - An Iranian Revolutionary Guards senior official said on Monday that the Strait of Hormuz is closed and Iran will fire on any ship trying to pass, Iranian media reported.

This is Iran's most explicit warning since telling ships it was closing the export route on Saturday, a move that threatens to choke a fifth of global oil flows and send crude prices sharply higher.

The United States attacked Iran only after learning that ally Israel was going to strike and fearing Tehran would retaliate against US forces, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday.

"We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties," Rubio told reporters.

March 2 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's Foreign Minister discussed events in Iran and throughout the Middle East on Monday with counterparts from Central Asia and Azerbaijan, the Kazakhstan Foreign Ministry said.

A ministry statement said those taking part in the discussion, unusual in that it involved most states in the region at one time, called for a negotiated settlement to the upheaval in and around Iran.

ATHENS, March 2 (Reuters) - Greek police have detained a 36-year-old man on suspicion of spying on a naval base on the island of Crete, a strategic facility for the United States in the eastern Mediterranean, police officials said on Monday.

The man was detained at Athens’ airport on information by the country’s intelligence service.

Souda Bay in Crete is home to military facilities for Greece, the U.S. and the NATO military alliance, and recently, the U.S. aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford had visited the base for resupply.

US President Donald Trump says he attacked Iran to eliminate a threat. How he sees the war ending is much less clear.

After Saturday's first strikes killed the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Trump called on Iranians to rise up.

But Trump soon said his war launched alongside Israel was not about regime change after all.

In the end, the mission of the military operation launched by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might best be summed up by the name the Pentagon gave it -- "Epic Fury."

By Hadeel Al Sayegh, Rachna Uppal and Federico Maccioni

DUBAI/ABU DHABI, March 2 (Reuters) - For decades, Dubai's sales pitch featured gleaming skylines, tax-free salaries, ease of doing business and something far more intangible: the unspoken promise that whatever was happening elsewhere in the Middle East, this city was different. The conflicts that destabilised the region would somehow stop at Dubai's borders.

By Brad Brooks and Jana Winter

March 2 (Reuters) - Authorities investigating a mass shooting at a bar in Austin, Texas, that killed at least two people said on Monday it was too early to say if the gunmanwas motivated by the war in Iran.

The body of the gunman, who was killed by police, was seen in a photo obtained by Reuters wearing a shirt with an Iranian flag and “IRAN” spelled out in green, white and red across the front. He was also wearing a sweatshirt that said "Property of Allah" on it, a government official told Reuters.

By Lisa Baertlein

LONG BEACH, Calif., March 2 (Reuters) - Container ships account for roughly 100 of the 750 ships backed up around the Strait of Hormuz following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, Jeremy Nixon, CEO of container carrier Ocean Network Express (ONE), said on Monday.

"About 10% of the container ship global fleet is caught up in this," Nixon said at a container shipping industry conference in Long Beach, California.

BRUSSELS, March 2 (Reuters) - European Council President Antonio Costa said on Monday he welcomed the Lebanese government's decision to end Hezbollah's military activities and its demand that those responsible for firing at Israel be brought to justice.

"It is now important for Israel and Lebanon to resume security coordination, so the Lebanese Armed Forces can disarm Hezbollah and ensure the security of all Lebanese people," Costa said in a post on X, after he spoke with Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun.