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Iran has struck an electricity and water desalination plant in Kuwait in the latest escalation of tit-for-tat attacks across the Gulf, raising concerns about the likelihood of further strikes targeting critical civilian infrastructure on either side of the waterway.
Kuwait’s electricity ministry said an Indian national was killed and a service building damaged at one of its plants in a “brutal Iranian attack” on Sunday, during the war against Iran being waged by the US and Israel.
Fatima Hayat, a ministry spokesperson, said on Monday that teams were working to repair the damage and maintain operations. Hayat urged people to remain calm and said the stability of the country’s electricity and water system was a “top priority”.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has denied any involvement in the strike, and claimed it was a false flag operation by Israel.
The attack marks the second confirmed targeting of power and water plants in the Gulf since the conflict began in late February with US and Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic. A facility in Bahrain was damaged this month after Iran accused Israel of hitting a desalination facility in the Islamic republic.
The strike on the Kuwait plant came in response to an attack on Saturday on an Iranian water reservoir in Khuzestan province, south-western Iran. An Iranian security official told state media that there had been no injuries and there was no shortage of water in the province.
The attacks on civilian infrastructure and comments by US President Donald Trump suggest the start of a more dangerous phase of the war.
On Monday, Trump threatened to blow up Iranian electricity plants and oil wells if a deal with Tehran did not come soon.
The targeting of critical national infrastructure could prompt an escalatory response from Gulf states, whose populations depend on such facilities. Until now, the US’s regional allies have adopted a defensive posture, insisting that they would not strike back at the Islamic republic.
Desalination plants are vital because they produce about 80 per cent of the Gulf’s drinking water.
“If that infrastructure is struck at scale, it will not produce a contained Gulf crisis,” said George Farag, a former US diplomat co-ordinating consular crisis operations in the region. “It could detonate a simultaneous humanitarian catastrophe across the most fragile economies in the region.”
Any collapse in potable water supply would force the “exodus” of the Gulf’s largely foreign population, including many from countries such as Egypt, Lebanon and Sudan, he added.
But industry sources said that, given strategic stocks, it would take a sustained campaign against these plants to threaten the region’s potable water supply.
Iran has stepped up its retaliatory attacks on the Gulf states where US forces are based. Iranian strikes on Saturday caused “significant damage” to Emirates Global Aluminium’s major smelter in Abu Dhabi, injuring some employees of the state-owned company.
Bahrain’s Alba aluminium facility was also damaged by Iranian drones, leaving two employees injured. Last month, Alba shut down 19 per cent of its capacity in response to disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
When Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gasfield this month, Iran responded by attacking liquefied natural gas facilities in Qatar, causing damage that could constrain production for a few years.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Sunday warned that US universities in the region would be “legitimate targets” unless America condemned recent Israeli air strikes on Iranian institutions.
The UAE, along with other regional states, hosts various higher education institutions affiliated with the US, including NYU Abu Dhabi and Georgetown in Doha.
A recent surge in cyber attacks on critical infrastructure across the Gulf has also been blamed on Iran-linked actors, according to cyber security firm SHIELDNXT. Targets have included energy infrastructure, banking services, telecommunications networks and government systems.
The number of drone and missile attacks over the weekend surged four-fold but fell back by a third on Monday, according to the UAE defence
ministry.
An increase in the number of interceptions could be heard over the skies of Dubai over the weekend as the emirate’s ruler attended the 30th anniversary of the city’s annual marquee horseracing event, Saturday’s $30.5mn Dubai World Cup.