DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran issued an evacuation warning Saturday for three major ports in the United Arab Emirates, including the busiest in the Middle East, openly threatening a neighboring country's non-U.S. assets for the first time as its war with the U.S. and Israel entered its third week.
Iran said the U.S. used "ports, docks and hideouts" in the UAE to launch strikes on Iran's Kharg Island, but provided no evidence. It urged people to evacuate areas where it said U.S. forces sheltered.
Hours after the threat, there was no sign of an attack on Dubai's Jebel Ali port — the Mideast's busiest — or the Khalifa port in Abu Dhabi. Associated Press images showed a fire at the third port, in Fujairah, caused by debris from an intercepted Iranian drone hitting an oil facility.
A fire and plume of smoke rise Saturday after authorities say debris from an intercepted Iranian drone struck an oil facility in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told MS NOW that the U.S. attacked Kharg Island and Abu Musa Island with low-range artillery from two locations in the UAE, Ras Al-Khaimah and a place "very close to Dubai," calling that dangerous and saying Iran "will try to be careful not to attack any populated area" there.
People are also reading…
Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Arab Gulf neighbors during the war, but said it targeted U.S. assets, even as hits or attempts were reported on civilian ones such as airports and oil fields.
On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. "obliterated" military sites on Kharg Island, home to the main terminal handling Iran's oil exports. He said oil infrastructure could be next if Tehran continues to interfere with ships' passage through the Strait of Hormuz, where vessels are backed up and one-fifth of global oil supplies usually transit.
Iran's parliamentary speaker previously said strikes against the country's oil infrastructure would provoke a new level of retaliation.
Iran has allowed some Indian vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.
As global anxiety soars over oil prices and supplies, Trump said Saturday that he hopes China, France, Japan, South Korea, the U.K. and others send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz "open and safe." Britain in response said it was discussing with allies a "range of options" to secure shipping.
Iran's joint military command reiterated its threat to attack U.S.-linked "oil, economic and energy infrastructures" in the region if the Islamic Republic's oil infrastructure is hit.
Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency said the Kharg Island strikes caused no damage to oil infrastructure. It said they targeted an air defense facility, a naval base, the airport control tower and an offshore oil company's helicopter hangar.
U.S. Central Command said it destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers and other military sites.
Rescue workers inspect an apartment damaged in an Israeli airstrike as thick smoke fills the building Saturday in Sidon, Lebanon.
Israel earlier announced another wave of strikes in Iran targeting infrastructure, and said its air force hit more than 200 targets in 24 hours, including missile launchers, defense systems and weapons production sites.
A U.S. official said Friday that 2,500 more Marines with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli were sent to the Middle East, adding to the military's largest buildup of warships and aircraft in the region in decades. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans.
Marine Expeditionary Units can conduct amphibious landings but also specialize in bolstering security at embassies, evacuating civilians and providing disaster relief. The deployment doesn't necessarily indicate that a ground operation will take place. The Wall Street Journal first reported the Marine deployment.
An overnight Israeli strike in southern Lebanon killed a dozen health workers at a clinic, with health authorities saying 26 paramedics have been killed since March 2. Israel and Lebanon are expected to hold direct talks in the coming days, their first since the start of the Iran war that has drawn Lebanon deeper into conflict, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Saturday. Details by FRANCE 24 correspondent in Jerusalem, Noga Tarnopolsky.
The Tripoli was spotted by commercial satellites sailing near Taiwan, putting it more than a week away from waters off Iran.
Earlier this past week, the Navy had 12 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and eight destroyers, in the Arabian Sea. The total number of U.S. service members on the ground in the Middle East isn't clear.
A missile struck a helipad Saturday inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The embassy complex, one of the largest U.S. diplomatic facilities in the world, repeatedly was targeted by rockets and drones fired by Iran-aligned militias.
There was no immediate comment from the embassy. On Friday, it renewed its Level 4 security alert for Iraq, warning that Iran and Iran-aligned militia groups previously carried out attacks against U.S. citizens, interests and infrastructure and "may continue to target them."
A man stands atop the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike Saturday as a bulldozer clears debris in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Lebanon's humanitarian crisis deepened, with more than 800 people killed and 850,000 displaced as Israel launched waves of strikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.
There is no end in sight to the fighting, as about 100,000 Israeli troops amassed along the U.N.-mandated Blue Line that divides the two countries in an anticipated ground invasion.
Many fear the Israel-Hezbollah conflict could continue beyond the Iran war.
Photos from Iran, Israel and Lebanon in the 2nd week of the Iran war
Smoke rise from an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, at sunset in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
A boy runs inside cement pipe turned into a bomb shelter as air raid sirens warn of incoming Iranian missile strike in Michmoret, Israel, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Smoke rise from an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A man passes in front of a destroyed building that housed a branch of Al-Qard Al-Hassan, a non-bank financial institution run by Hezbollah, which was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
People walk past closed shops at the nearly empty traditional main bazaar in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Motorbikes drive past a billboard depicting Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, handing the country’s flag to his son and successor Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, right, as the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stands at left, in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Flames rise after an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh Beirut's southern suburbs, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A man holds a poster of Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the successor to his late father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader, during a rally to support him in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People wave Iranian flags as they hold posters of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, showing him at different ages, during a rally to support his son Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeds his father as the new supreme leader, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People gather in a rally to support Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the successor to his late father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
The coffin of Mehdi Hosseini, a man killed in a U.S.-Israeli strike, is carried for burial at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A girl displaced by Israeli airstrikes, looks on at a school used as a shelter in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Relatives mourn over the flag draped coffin of Mehdi Hosseini who was killed in a U.S.-Israeli strike during his burial ceremony at Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Israeli security forces and ZAKA rescue service members carry the body of a man killed in an Iranian missile strike in Yehud, Israel, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Two women from the Iranian Red Crescent Society stand as a thick plume of smoke from a U.S.-Israeli strike on an oil storage facility late Saturday rises in the sky in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman walks past a cordoned-off area damaged during an Iranian strike in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Mourners carry the bodies of Hezbollah fighters who were killed by Israeli airstrikes during their funeral procession in Khraibeh village, eastern Lebanon, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Residents look on and take pictures as flames and smoke rise from an oil storage facility struck as attacks hit the city during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (Alireza Sotakbar/ISNA via AP)

