Explore Business Standard
Iran fired upon commercial ships on Wednesday and targeted Dubai International Airport, escalating a campaign of bottling up the oil-rich Persian Gulf as global energy concerns mounted and American and Israeli airstrikes pounded the Islamic Republic. Iran's response to the surprise Israeli and US bombardment that started 12 days ago has upended trade routes, choked supplies of fuel and fertiliser coming out of the Gulf and threatened air traffic through one of the world's most-travelled regions. Both sides have dug in, hoping to outlast the other. Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, was wounded at the start of the war - on the day when his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in an Israeli airstrike, an Israeli intelligence assessment has found. An Israeli intelligence official and a reservist with knowledge of the assessment spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter with the media. They gave no ..