Dubai: Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility was hit in an airstrike Saturday, the official Iranian news agency Mizan reported. There was no radiation leakage, it said, as the war in the Middle East entered its fourth week.
Natanz, Iran’s main enrichment site, was hit in the first week of the war, and several buildings appeared damaged, according to satellite images. The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog had said that “no radiological consequence” was expected from that earlier strike.
The nuclear facility, located nearly 220 kilometres (135 miles) southeast of Tehran, had been targeted by Israeli airstrikes in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025, and by the United States.
The strike comes a day after US President Donald Trump said he was considering “winding down” military operations in the Middle East even as the US is sending three more amphibious assault ships and roughly 2,500 additional Marines to the region.
Trump’s post Friday on social media followed an Iranian threat to attack recreational and tourist sites worldwide and another day of the airstrikes, drone and missile attacks that have engulfed the region.
The mixed messages from the United States came after another climb in oil prices plunged the country’s stock market, and was followed by a Trump administration announcement it was lifting sanctions on Iranian oil already loaded on ships, a move aimed at wrangling soaring fuel prices.
The three-week-old war has shown no signs of abating, with Israel saying Iran continued to fire missiles at it early Saturday, while Saudi Arabia said it downed 20 drones in just a couple of hours in the country’s eastern region, which is home to major oil installations.
The attacks came a day after Israeli airstrikes hit in Tehran as Iranians celebrated the Persian New Year, known as Nowruz, a normally festive holiday that has been muted by the war.
Trump says US near completion of its goals
The US and Israel have offered shifting rationales for the war, from hoping to foment an uprising that topples Iran’s leadership to eliminating its nuclear and missile programmes. There have been no public signs of any such uprising and no end to the war in sight.
On social media, Trump said, “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East.”
That seemed at odds with his administration’s move to bolster its firepower in the region and request another USD 200 billion from Congress to fund the war.
The United States is deploying three more amphibious assault ships and roughly 2,500 additional Marines to the Middle East, an official told The Associated Press. Two other US officials confirmed that ships were deploying, without saying where they were headed. All three spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.
Days earlier, the US redirected another group of amphibious assault ships carrying another 2,500 Marines from the Pacific to the Middle East. The Marines will join more than 50,000 US troops already in the region.
Trump has said he has no plans to send ground forces into Iran but also has asserted that he retains all options.
Iran threatens attacks beyond the Middle East
Iran’s top military spokesperson, Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, warned Friday that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide will not be safe for the country’s enemies. The threat renewed concerns that Tehran may revert to using militant attacks beyond the Middle East as a pressure tactic.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei praised Iranians’ steadfastness in the face of war in a written statement read on Iranian television to mark Nowruz. Khamenei has not been seen in public since he became supreme leader following Israeli strikes that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and reportedly wounded him.
With little information coming out of Iran, it was not clear how much damage its arms, nuclear or energy facilities have sustained in the punishing US and Israeli strikes, which began February 28 — or even who was truly in charge of the country. But Iran’s attacks are still choking off oil supplies and raising food and fuel prices far beyond the Middle East.
Israel continues wave of strikes against Hezbollah militants
The Israeli military said early Saturday that it began a wave of strikes targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Smoke was seen rising, fires broke out and loud explosions were heard across parts of central Beirut, hours after the Israeli army renewed evacuation warnings for seven neighbourhoods.
Israeli strikes targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced more than 1 million, according to the Lebanese government.
More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran during the war. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missiles and four others have died in the occupied West Bank. At least 13 US military members have been killed.
US pauses sanctions on Iranian oil
Brent crude oil, the international standard, has soared during the fighting and was around USD 106 per barrel, up from roughly USD 70 before the war.
The newly announced US pause in sanctions applies to Iranian oil loaded on ships as of Friday and is set to end April 19.
The new move does not increase the flow of production, a central factor in the surging prices. Iran has managed to evade US sanctions for years, suggesting that much of what it exports already reaches buyers.
Looking for ways to boost global oil supplies during the Iran war, the Trump administration has previously paused sanctions on certain Russian oil shipments for 30 days, which critics said rewarded Moscow while having only a modest effect on markets.
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