DUBAI, Mar 12: Middle East war has sparked worries of 'terror' attacks, oil shock, huge displacement in the region as US and Israeli launched aggression on Iran, according to agencies like AFP, Reuters.
European countries have stepped up domestic security since US-Israeli strikes on Iran sparked the Middle East war, with fears Tehran could be plotting "terrorist" attacks as part of its retaliation.
The Islamic republic has been accused of seeking to orchestrate incidents in the past, and three such attacks have occurred in the United States and Europe since the start of the war on February 28.
In Norway, three Norwegian brothers of Iraqi origin have been arrested on suspicion of a "terrorist bombing" over an explosion at the US embassy in Oslo on Sunday that caused minor damage, and police have said they are exploring the possibility they were following "an order from a government entity".
Iran's ambassador in Oslo has denied any involvement.
A video appearing to show Iran's late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a religious guide for Shia Muslims who was killed on the first day of the US-Israeli strikes in Iran, was uploaded to the Google Maps page for the US embassy after the incident.
In Belgium, a pre-dawn blast on Monday damaged a synagogue in the country's eastern city of Liege, but caused no injuries.
Authorities said on Thursday they were examining a video claiming responsibility for the attack that was shared by the Shia "militant online community".
In the United States, a US citizen of Senegalese origin who earlier this month killed two people in Austin, the capital of the US state of Texas had expressed "pro-Iranian regime sentiment" on social media, the SITE Intelligence Group has said.
Meanwhile, the Middle East war "is creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market", as Iran's chokehold on regional supplies forces Gulf producers to slash production, the International Energy Agency said Thursday.
In its latest market report, the IEA said crude production was currently down by at least 8.0 million barrels per day.
US-ISRAELI WAR ON IRAN
* Mideast oil shock 'largest supply disruption' in history: IEA
* Oil tankers burn as Iranian strikes defy Trump's claim to have won the war
* US military 'not ready' to escort tankers through Hormuz Strait: Energy secretary
* Middle East war displaces three million inside Iran: UN
The conflict, triggered on February 28 by American-Israeli attacks on Iran, is hampering the global economy's supply of oil and weakening production capacity.
The war has seen Iran tighten its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global crude passes, effectively all but shutting it down.
IEA said current flows through the strait were moving at less than 10 percent of pre-crisis levels, which in 2025 were around 15 million barrels per day -- with "no signs of a de-escalation in hostilities or a clear timeline for a recovery in flows through the Strait."
It stressed that a resumption of flows would be key in minimising the war's impact on global markets.
Against that backdrop, major European stock markets were off more than half of one percent in early morning trading before recovering slightly. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei had shed one percent at the close while Hong Kong closed off 0.7 percent.
A threat from Tehran to bring down the global economy overshadowed an impending record release of strategic crude by the IEA. On Wednesday it said its 32 members had agreed to unlock 400 million barrels of oil from reserves -- their largest release ever.
"The co-ordinated emergency stock release provides a significant and welcome buffer, but in the absence of a swift resolution to the conflict, it remains a stop-gap measure," the IEA warned.
Meanwhile, two tankers were ablaze in an Iraqi port on Thursday after a hit by suspected Iranian explosive-laden boats, a step up in attacks that have cut off oil from the Middle East and defied Donald Trump's claim to have won the war he launched two weeks ago.
Images verified by Reuters as having been filmed from the shore of the port of Basra showed ships engulfed in massive orange fireballs that lit up the night sky, after the attacks which Iraqi authorities blamed on Iranian boats. At least one crew member was killed.
Hours earlier, three other ships had been struck in the Gulf. Iran's Revolutionary Guards claimed responsibility for at least one of those attacks, on a Thai bulk carrier that was set ablaze, which the Guards said had disobeyed their orders. Another container vessel reported being struck by an unknown projectile near the United Arab Emirates on Thursday.
The war that began with a U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign at the end of February has so far killed around 2,000 people and caused what the International Energy Agency describes as the biggest disruption to global energy supplies in history.
Undermining U.S. and Israeli claims to have ?knocked out much of Iran's stock of long-range weapons, more drones were reported on Thursday flying into Kuwait, Iraq, the UAE, Bahrain and Oman. Lebanon's Iran-backed militia Hezbollah fired its biggest volley of rockets into Israel of the war, prompting fresh Israeli strikes on Beirut.
Meanwhile, the US military is currently "not ready" to escort tankers through the critical Strait of Hormuz because all its assets are focused on striking Iran, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Thursday.
Wright's comments came as an attack on two oil tankers off Iraq killed at least one person, and oil prices briefly soared past $100.
Since launching the war on Iran, US President Donald Trump has sought to calm the markets by offering US Navy escorts for oil tankers and reinsurance facilities for shipping companies -- but no escorts have so far taken place.
"It'll happen relatively soon, but it can't happen now. We're simply not ready," Wright told CNBC. "All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran's offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities."
He added that it was "quite likely" such escorts would be taking place by the end of the month.
In the meantime, up to 3.2 million people have been displaced inside Iran since the Middle East war erupted, the United Nations refugee agency said Thursday.
"Between 600,000 and one million Iranian households are now temporarily displaced inside Iran as a result of the ongoing conflict, according to preliminary assessments," said Ayaki Ito, who heads UNHCR's emergency support team and is the refugee response coordinator for the Middle East emergency. �"Agencies
