The China Mail - Strikes target Gulf as French soldier killed in Iraq

The latest strikes on Iran hit over 200 targets in the past day, Israel's military said well into the second week of the US-Israeli campaign that has grown into a deadly regional fight causing economic chaos.

Washington has moved to try to calm markets by announcing the easing of restrictions on Russian oil sales, though US President Donald Trump said defeating Iran's "evil empire" was more important than soaring crude prices.

Oil remained above the benchmark $100 a barrel on Friday despite a record release of crude reserves and the International Energy Agency warned the war could create "the largest supply disruption" in the industry's history.

The conflict, which began February 28 with US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will head into its third week on Saturday.

Though France is not taking part in the US-Israeli bombing campaign against Israel, Paris has troops in the Middle East.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced Friday his nation's first soldier was killed during the war, in an attack in the Erbil region of Iraq that also wounded other soldiers.

Macron did not give details on the attack, or who was behind it, but France's military said earlier that drones hit a base where troops were taking part in counter-terrorism training with Iraqi counterparts.

France has said its stance in the war is "strictly defensive."

Earlier, a pro-Iranian group in Iraq, Ashab al-Kahf, warned French interests in the region were a target after the arrival of a French aircraft carrier, but there was no claim of responsibility for the attack.

Elsewhere in Iraq, a US refueling aircraft crashed, though the US military said it was "not due to hostile fire or friendly fire."

Iran's military however claimed in a statement carried by state TV that an allied group in Iraq had downed the aircraft with a missile, killing all its crew.

And in Turkey, sirens were heard at the Incirlik airbase, a key NATO facility were US troops are stationed, state news agency Anadolu reported.

There was no immediate comment on the report, which came four days after NATO air defences intercepted a ballistic missile in Turkish airspace.

- Oil prices rise again -

Iran has unleashed waves of drone and missile strikes against neighbouring states hosting US military assets, including Saudi Arabia, whose defence ministry said Friday that its forces had intercepted dozens of drones.

In Dubai, debris from an intercepted attack hit a building in a central district, the government media office said.

Israel also reported new Iranian missile attacks, and authorities said dozens of people had been lightly injured in the town of Zarzir.

On Thursday, Iranian security chief Ali Larijani warned Trump that the war "cannot be won with a few tweets" and that "we will not relent until making you sorry for this grave miscalculation."

His comments came after Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a defiant first statement.

Mojtaba Khamenei, who was reportedly wounded in the strike that killed his father, has not appeared publicly since his nomination. His message calling for vengeance was read by an anchor on state television.

The statement said the "lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must definitely be used," referring to Iran's effective closure of the waterway.

A fourth of the world's seaborne oil trade and a fifth of global liquefied natural gas supplies pass through the narrow strait.

- 'We won't leave' -

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war was "crushing" Iran and Tehran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, and was intended to allow Iranians to "bring down this regime".

In an interview with AFP, Iran's deputy foreign minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said Tehran was acting only in "self defence" and wanted to ensure that war could not be "imposed" again.

He said Iran had been approached by some "friendly countries" aiming to end the conflict, without specifying which ones.

"We are telling them the same thing, that we want the ceasefire to be part of an overall formula for ending the war altogether," he said.

The war has upended daily life for Iranians.

A 30-year-old woman living in Kermanshah in western Iran said 90 percent of shops in her city had closed.

"People are desperately trying to withdraw their savings from the banks, as trust in them has vanished," she said. "Bread is now rationed. The population is extremely tense and outraged."

The conflict has heavily impacted Lebanon, where authorities reported 687 people killed by Israeli attacks, including at least 12 in a strike Thursday on Beirut's seafront, where displaced families are camping in tents.

Dalal al-Sayed told AFP she had pitched her tent there after fleeing attacks in southern Lebanon. Her family cannot afford to rent an apartment, she said.

"We won't leave, we will stay here even if we die."

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Thursday that he was ordering troops to "prepare for expanding" attacks on Lebanon.

Iran's health ministry said on March 8 that more than 1,200 people have been killed in the war, a figure AFP has not been able to independently verify.

Three million people have been displaced by the war in Iran, according to figures issued Thursday by the UN's refugee agency.

Officials said 14 people had been killed in Israel since the start of the Iran war, while attacks in the Gulf have killed 24, including 11 civilians and seven US military personnel.

burs-sah/jm

B.Clarke--ThChM