Iran Launches More Than 4,000 Attacks, Hitting UAE and Kuwait Amid Iran–U.S. Gulf Fallout

In the weeks leading up to a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire, the Iran–U.S. confrontation spilled into Gulf economies and maritime security, with the Strait of Hormuz becoming both a “direct threat” and a “key lever,” according to L’Orient Today.

“For Turkiye’s government, the Iran war has complicated efforts to turn around an economy still reeling from one of the worst financial crises in the country’s history”

Al Jazeera

L’Orient Today, citing “Horizon Insights,” said Iran launched “more than 4,000 attacks between Feb. 28 and March 19” against countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), “primarily using drones and missiles.”

Al Jazeera

It added that “The United Arab Emirates was the hardest hit, while Kuwait recorded the highest number of casualties,” and said U.S. air defense systems helped limit damage while exposing “the very core of the Gulf’s economic model by targeting critical infrastructure.”

Al Jazeera described the war’s fallout as inflicting “significant damage on infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar,” while Turkey positioned itself as “a model of security and stability for businesses and investors” because it was “protected by NATO air defences” and “has emerged largely unscathed.”

Tabnak’s account tied the turning point to the “fortieth day of a war” in which “U.S. President Donald Trump and Iran's Supreme National Security Council accepted a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire,” and said “for the first time since late February, ships will be allowed to pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz.”

In parallel, Al Jazeera reported that the conflict was “officially on pause until Wednesday under a two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran,” placing the pause in a near-term diplomatic window.

Multiple analyses in the provided reporting frame the widening of the conflict toward Gulf Arab states as a deliberate strategy rather than a spillover accident.

SWI swissinfo.ch, relaying an analysis from Tages-Anzeiger, said the Iranian regime was waging “an existential struggle,” and that expanding the war to Gulf states aimed to “increase pressure until the Gulf states force the American government to halt the attacks.”

SWI swissinfo.ch

It also said the paper “citing Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s admission that orders were issued before the war began,” which it described as suggesting Tehran “had planned in advance to distribute the cost of the war across the entire region.”

SWI added that the analysis claimed Iran was “betting on its ability to carry on the attacks for a longer period,” while “air defense missiles in Gulf states, Israel, and American forces are running low — a bet on who has the longer breath.”

Tabnak similarly argued that the conflict’s roots were not a long arc of U.S.–Iran confrontation alone, saying “This war did not arise organically from the long arc of U.S.–Iran confrontation that has defined Middle East geopolitics for 47 years.”

It described the war as emerging from “Israel's strategic doctrine after October 7, 2023 — what Israeli planners, calm and quietly, described as 'zeroing out the threats'” and said “The United States provided the military capability. Israel supplied the strategic rationale.”

As the conflict paused, European and regional diplomacy appeared in the reporting as a parallel track to the ceasefire.

“Iran's ten-item plan neither reflects maximalism nor surrender”

Tabnak

Al Jazeera reported that Turkey’s government was “jumped at the chance to promote Turkiye as a model of security and stability for businesses and investors,” while Iranian missiles and drones “have inflicted significant damage on infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”

It said Ankara cast the war as a boon to ambitions to transform Istanbul into “one of the world’s leading financial centres,” quoting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: “Just as in the pandemic period, we wholeheartedly believe that this global crisis, too, will open new doors before our country,” Erdogan said in a statement posted on social media.

Al Jazeera also quoted Turkish Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek confirming soon afterwards that the government was preparing “radical” incentives to lure foreign capital.

In Brussels, Al Sharq (الشرق) reported that EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called on the United States and Israel to end the war on Iran, saying “the bloc is conducting consultations to explore ways to halt this conflict.”

She also said: “Certainly. I think it would be in everyone’s interest for this war to stop,” and warned that “The problem with wars is that they are easier to start than to end, and they always spiral out of control.”

The reporting also shows how different outlets and analyses frame the same conflict in sharply different ways, from strategic inevitability to warnings about catastrophic spillover.

SWI swissinfo.ch, again drawing on Le Temps, quoted Chatham House director Sanam Vakil warning that “the conflict is no longer a war merely between Iran, Israel, and the United States, but has become a regional war,” and said “more than 11 countries have been struck as part of Iran’s defensive strategy.”

Al Jazeera

SWI quoted Vakil arguing that Iran’s “dangerous strategy of striking Arab states” reflects “the limited options available to Tehran to defend itself against the United States and Israel,” and described the aim as “distribute the cost of this war by hitting as many countries and individuals as possible.”

It also included Vakil’s warning that “the United States might destroy a large country and leave its people and Europeans to pick up the pieces,” and concluded with her assessment that “this war will prove to be a strategic mistake for the American administration, and will leave Iran and the region as a whole in total chaos.”

Tabnak, by contrast, presented a structured argument about Iran’s “ten-item peace plan” embedded in the ceasefire, asserting that “Iran's ten-item plan neither reflects maximalism nor surrender” and that it “has carefully evaluated its leverage and decided to transform that leverage into stable security arrangements and economic assistance.”

L’Orient Today’s analysis, meanwhile, emphasized the economic and infrastructural shock, saying attacks “exposed the very core of the Gulf’s economic model by targeting critical infrastructure,” and described the shock as “strategic and economic,” with “slower exports, logistical disruptions, market volatility.”

Looking ahead, the reporting ties the ceasefire’s maritime opening to broader economic and humanitarian risks, while also outlining how actors plan to manage the corridor.

“On Tuesday, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called on the United States and Israel to end the war on Iran, saying that the bloc is conducting consultations to explore ways to halt this conflict”

Al-Sharq

L’Orient Today said the Strait of Hormuz shift is both “a direct threat and a key lever” in the Iran–U.S. confrontation, and described the shock as including “slower exports, logistical disruptions, market volatility,” with attacks targeting “critical infrastructure.”

SWI swissinfo.ch

Al Sharq (الشرق) framed the stakes for Europe in terms of energy and food, quoting Kallas saying “No one is willing to put their people at risk in the Strait of Hormuz,” and that “We must find diplomatic ways to keep this corridor open so that we do not face a food crisis, a fertilizer crisis, and an energy crisis in the world.”

Kallas proposed repeating “a UN-facilitated agreement to export grain from Ukraine during the war,” describing a route via “the Black Sea” without “civilian ships being attacked by Russian forces,” and said she had spoken with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about the idea.

Tabnak linked the ceasefire to a “diplomatic roadmap,” stating that “for the first time since late February, ships will be allowed to pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz,” and said the ceasefire “explicitly includes Iran's ten-item peace plan.”

Al Jazeera’s Turkey-focused piece added a parallel economic dimension, describing how Ankara wanted to capitalize on the “shadow that the conflict – which is officially on pause until Wednesday under a two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran – has cast over regional business hubs such as Dubai, Doha and Riyadh.”