Iran continues to hit Gulf countries as Israeli strikes intensify; Tehran says new leader appointed

Gulf states reported more damage to infrastructure over the weekend as Iran continues to attack regional allies in retaliation for ongoing strikes by U.S. and Israeli forces.

Meanwhile, Iranian media said a new leader has been appointed, replacing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening salvos of the war.

The United Arab Emirates said it was “dealing with incoming missile and drone threats from Iran.”

“UAE air defences are currently responding to incoming missile and drone threats from Iran,” the country’s Ministry of Defense said in a post on X.

It said its defenses were intercepting ballistic missiles while fighter jets were tackling drones and “loitering munitions.”

On Saturday evening, alarms rang out across Dubai and Abu Dhabi, warning residents to “immediately seek a safe place” due to missile threats, and CNBC’s team confirmed hearing a loud explosion.

A high-rise building in Dubai’s Marina area, 23 Marina, was hit by falling debris. According to Dubai’s Media Office, no one was injured, but authorities confirmed that “debris from an aerial interception fell onto a vehicle in the Al Barsha area, resulting in the death of a Pakistani driver.”

Also on Saturday, passengers waiting for flights at Dubai International Airport were ushered into train tunnels. Iran said it had struck an air base in the United Arab Emirates.

Since the war started on Feb. 28, Iran has targeted several radar and air defenses in the Middle East — in Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — in retaliation against U.S. and Israeli attacks, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials, military analysts and commercially available satellite images.

Bahrain said Sunday that a drone attack struck a water desalination plant.

“Iranian aggression indiscriminately attacked civilian targets and caused material damage to a water desalination plant following a drone attack,” Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior said in a post on X.

In a statement to CNBC, Bahrain’s electricity and water authority said the “Iranian attack on a water desalination facility has had no impact on water supplies or water network capacity.”

The country said “blatant Iranian aggression” damaged a university building in the Muharraq area, injuring three people, as missile fragments fell.

Meanwhile, Iran has accused the U.S. of striking a desalination plant in its country. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a social media post that the U.S. “committed a blatant and desperate crime by attacking a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island. Water supply in 30 villages has been impacted.”

“Attacking Iran’s infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences,” Araghchi said.

U.S. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a Central Command spokesman, told MS NOW that Araghchi’s claim was false.

“The Iranian regime is doing everything it can to peddle lies and deceive,” Hawkins said. “This is the same terrorist regime that has attacked 12 different countries and continues to deliberately target civilian airports, hotels, and neighborhoods in those countries. U.S. forces do not target civilians – period.”

Elsewhere, Kuwait said two fuel depots at its international airport were hit by drones, causing a “huge fire at one of them.” The country’s Public Institution for Social Security said its headquarters were targeted, resulting in “material damage” to the building.

Meanwhile, Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iran have continued through the weekend.

Israel said it struck several fuel storage complexes belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. “The strike significantly deepens the damage to the military infrastructure of the Iranian terrorist regime,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a post on X.

The IDF also said it attacked “key commanders in the IRGC’s Quds Force’s Lebanon Corps who operated in Beirut.”

The fighting in the Gulf has greatly disrupted the oil market due to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which carries about 20% of global oil production. The bottleneck has left Gulf nations unable to export their oil.

Oil production in Iraq has fallen by 70% since the war broke out, according to Reuters. The country is producing about 1.3 million barrels per day now, down from about 4.3 million before the war. Kuwait, another oil-rich Gulf state, has also slashed its oil production.

U.S. crude oil has soared to more than $91 per barrel, and the global benchmark Brent crude has spiked to over $92 per barrel. As a result, the average price of gas in the U.S. has jumped to over $3.46 per gallon, according to GasBuddy, from an average of $2.94 a gallon a week earlier.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright sought to assure Americans that the spike in fuel prices is just a short-term problem, saying the disruption would last for “weeks, certainly not months.”

“We believe this is a small price to pay to get to a world where energy prices will return back to where they were,” Wright said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “Iran will finally be defanged, and now you can see more investment, more free flow of trade, less ability to threaten energy supplies.”

Iran’s Mehr news agency quoted Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Alam al-Huda as saying Sunday elections have been held to replace Khamenei and that a new leader has been appointed. It did not give a name.

“All the rumors and news that tried to pretend that the Assembly of Experts has not yet made a decision are pure lies,” al-Huda was quoted as saying.

Iranian state ​media reported on Saturday that two influential Iranian clerics have called for the swift selection of a new supreme leader

One of the clerics, Naser Makarem ‌Shirazi, a grand ayatollah who commands a broad following for his religious rulings, said an appointment was ​needed swiftly to “help better organize the country’s affairs,” state media reported.

The calls suggest that at least some in the clerical establishment are uncomfortable with leaving a three-man council in charge — even temporarily ⁠under constitutional ‌rules — after the killing of Supreme ⁠Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Trump has argued the U.S. should have a role in choosing the new leader, a demand Iran has rejected. On Sunday, Trump threatened that a new leader in Tehran would be short-lived without his approval.

“He’s going to have to get approval from us,” Trump told ABC News. “If he doesn’t get approval from us, he’s not going to last long. We want to make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it.”

Trump told ABC he would not rule out someone from the old regime taking over the country, saying, “There are numerous people that could qualify.”

The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday it would “pursue every successor and every person who seeks to appoint a successor.”

“We warn all those who intend to participate in the successor selection meeting that we will not hesitate to target you either. This is a warning!” the IDF said in a post in Farsi on X.

Arab foreign ministers on Sunday strongly condemned Iran’s attacks on its Arab neighbors as a “grave threat to international peace and security.”

In a communique following their virtual meeting, the ministers expressed support to Gulf states, along with Jordan and Iraq, in the “measure they take to deter and respond to these aggressions.”

The ministers called for Iran to immediately stop its attacks and cease “provocative acts or threats to neighboring countries.” They urged the U.N. Security Council to condemn Iran and force it to “immediately and unconditionally halt its attacks” on Arab countries.

The ministers also voiced support to Lebanese government in its efforts to disarm Hezbollah, and urged the international community to pressure Israel to immediately cease its attacks on Lebanon.

The communique didn’t mention U.S. and Israeli strikes, which triggered the war.

— The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report