Iran fires on targets across the Mideast while Israel and US hit Tehran as war nears end of 5th week

AP , Friday 3 Apr 2026

As the war that the US and Israel began unilaterally on 28 February was to enter its sixth week, Israel, Bahrain, and Kuwait warned about incoming missile fire, although it was unclear if anything was struck, while the UAE shut down a gas facility, as activists in Iran reported strikes around Tehran and the central city of Isfahan.

Media representatives gather around a residential building that was damaged by recent strikes at Vahdat town in Karaj, southwest of Tehran. AFP

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, has sent oil prices skyrocketing.

US President Donald Trump said US forces will keep hitting Iran “very hard” in the next two or three weeks.

The largest American aircraft carrier in service sailed out of Split, Croatia, and “remains poised for full mission tasking in support of national objectives in any area of operation,” the Navy’s 6th Fleet announced. It was unclear where it was going. The USS Abraham Lincoln remains in the Arabian Sea and the USS George H. W. Bush aircraft carrier departed Norfolk on Wednesday to head to the Mideast.

Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery came under Iranian attack, and the state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. said firefighters were working to control several blazes.

Meanwhile, the UK deployed a a counter-drone system known as Rapid Sentry to Kuwait. "The RAF Regiment has deployed its highly effective Rapid Sentry counter-drone system to Kuwait," Britain's Royal Air Force announced Thursday. It is a ground-based air defence system which UK Defence Secretary John Healey said was "battle-tested" last week, when the deployment plan was first announced.

Kuwait also said that an Iranian attack caused “material damage” to a desalination plant. Such plants are responsible for most of the drinking water for Gulf states, and they have become a major target in the war.

Sirens also sounded in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed several Iranian drones, and Israel reported incoming missiles.

Authorities in the United Arab Emirates shut down a gas field after a missile interception reportedly rained debris on it and started a fire.

Activists reported strikes around Tehran and the central city of Isfahan, but it wasn’t immediately clear what was hit. A day earlier, Iran said the US hit a major bridge, which was still under construction, killing eight people.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war. In a review released Friday, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a US-based group, said they found that civilian casualties were clustered around strikes on security and state-linked sites “rather than indiscriminate bombardment” of urban areas.

More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 US service members have been killed, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.

More than 1,300 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced in Lebanon, where Israel has launched a ground invasion in its fight with the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militant group. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.