✈️ Jet Fuel Prices Surge as Iran War Disrupts Middle East Exports

Jet fuel prices are soaring around the world as oil traders grapple with the fallout of the Iran war, adding to wider concerns about global inflation.

In Europe, they’ve spiked to the highest since 2022 — the year that Russia began its invasion of Ukraine — while prices in the US and Asia hit a more than two-year high, according to figures from General Index. Costs are rallying faster than crude oil, which has risen as the Middle East conflict destabilizes energy output and disrupts a crucial shipping route in the region.

The European Union’s aviation fuel market is particularly at risk from Middle Eastern oil export disruption caused by the war. Half of the bloc’s jet fuel imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz, compared with only about 12% for diesel, Eugene Lindell, head of refined products at consultancy FGE NexantECA, said on a webinar on Wednesday.

Energy and commodity markets have been shaken since the conflict began at the weekend. Prices of gas, diesel and even aluminum have also climbed, in addition to soaring freight costs, which threaten to filter through to prices consumers pay.

Jet fuel’s massive rally is showing up in other key market metrics. In northwest Europe, the fuel’s premium to crude oil hit a record high of more than $70 a barrel in data going back to 2008, according to General Index figures. In Asia, the differential between jet and diesel-type fuels — often called the regrade — reached its widest since 2023.

🔗 https://archive.ph/E7ybo

🇮🇶⚡️📉❗️ — Iraq’s Electricity Ministry says a total blackout has hit the entire national power grid across all provinces.

A ministry spokesman says authorities are investigating the cause of the outage.

🇮🇷⚔️🇺🇸 Nearly $2 billion in US military assets torched as Iran strikes back across the Gulf

Washington’s war on Iran is already bleeding hardware. Estimates compiled by Anadolu indicate that nearly $2 billion in US military assets have been damaged or destroyed since Saturday. The most costly blow came at Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, where Iran struck a $1.1 billion AN/FPS-132 early warning radar system. Doha confirmed the hit. In Bahrain, missiles slammed into the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama, reportedly wiping out two AN/GSC-52B satellite communications terminals and several large buildings.

The losses mounted quickly. Three F-15E Strike Eagles were downed in a friendly fire incident involving Kuwaiti air defenses, adding an estimated $282 million to the bill. Iran also claims it destroyed the AN/TPY-2 radar component of the THAAD system deployed in the UAE, a piece of hardware valued at roughly $500 million. Open source satellite imagery suggests a direct hit. Combined, the damage amounts to an estimated $1.9 billion in US equipment degraded across the region in just days.

At least seven US military sites have been targeted across West Asia, from Bahrain and Kuwait to Iraq, the UAE and Qatar. Imagery and verified footage cited by The New York Times showed repeated strikes on the US installation at Erbil International Airport, with multiple structures damaged and fires burning into Monday. Jebel Ali Port in Dubai, one of the US Navy’s most frequented regional ports of call, also saw smoke rising from a building inside a fenced US naval zone. US diplomatic missions were not spared. Drones struck the US Embassy in Riyadh, reportedly hitting a CIA station inside the compound according to The Washington Post, while facilities in Kuwait City and Dubai sustained additional attacks, forcing closures and evacuations.

🔗 The Cradle

🇪🇸❌🇺🇸 — NEW: Spain's Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has firmly denied statements by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claiming that Spain would “cooperate militarily” with the United States and says the Spanish position remains unchanged.

Our position of "no to war" remains clear and forceful.

🇮🇷⚔️🇺🇸🇦🇪 China's MizarVizion published images of the destruction at the Al Dhafra Airbase in the UAE.

One large building was entirely destroyed while several others have suffered various degrees of damage.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇷 Minab schoolgirls massacre was deliberate US-Israeli attack intended to inflict maximum civilian casualties

On the morning of 28 February, missiles struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab, southern Iran, killing at least 165 people, most of them girls aged 7 to 12, and wounding at least 95 others. Despite claims linking the site to nearby military facilities, satellite imagery and historical analysis show the school had operated independently as a civilian institution for over a decade, with separate entrances, playgrounds, and classrooms.

Videos analyzed from the strike confirm two distinct missile impacts: one on the adjacent military base and one directly on the school.

According to an investigation by Al Jazeera, the massacre fits a documented pattern in US and Israeli operations, from Baghdad to Gaza, where schools, hospitals, and shelters have repeatedly been hit, followed by immediate denials or misattributions. In Minab, the attack was likely deliberate, and designed to inflict maximum civilian casualties to undermine public morale and send a stark warning amid ongoing US-Israeli attacks on the Islamic Republic.

🔗 The Cradle

#BREAKING
🌞🇮🇷❌🇮🇷🇮🇷❗️ — Israeli Journalist Yulia Pobegailova, quoting a "Iranian Kurdish official", says that Iranian Kurdish forces in Iraq have launched a ground military offensive into Iran against the Islamic Republic Regime

📝 According to the official, thousands of Kurdish fighters began taking combat positions inside Iranian territory on Monday, March 2.

@BellumActaNews

🇺🇸🇪🇸🇫🇷 The last USAF KC-135Rs Stratotanker left Spain..

March 1 (Sentinel-2):
11 x KC135 in Morón
5 x KC-135 in Rota

March 2 (Flightradar24):
9 x KC-135R from Morón leave to Germany.
4 x KC-135R from Rota to France

March 4:
1 x KC-135R from Morón to France
1 x KC-135R from Rota to France

🔗 MenchOSINT

🇦🇿🇮🇷 Azerbaijani troops reportedly deployed to Iranian border as conflict rages

Azerbaijani troops have reportedly been put on combat alert and deployed to the border with Iran, the independent media outlet Qazetchi has reported, citing sources. The move comes as the US–Israel war against Iran entered its fourth day, with countries across the region being drawn into the fighting.

According to information confirmed to Qazetchi from anonymous sources, ‘the Ministry of Defence, the State Border Service, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Emergency Situations have gone into high alert mode’.

The Defence Ministry has not confirmed or denied the information, nor responded to requests for comment from OC Media.

Qazetchi wrote that ‘the vacations of soldiers, warrant officers, and officers’ have been cancelled. Officers on leave have reportedly been recalled. Defence systems against drones and low-flying aircraft have been deployed on the border with Iran’.

Others, however, cited differing reasons for the troop buildup, with Talysh human rights defender Hilal Mammadov suggesting on social media that the army deployment could ‘perhaps be to prevent the influx of refugees’.

🔗 https://oc-media.org/azerbaijani-troops-reportedly-deployed-to-iranian-border-as-conflict-rages/

🇺🇦⚠️❌🚢🇷🇺 — ⭐️ Rybar:

"Leaving a trace in the Mediterranean: about another attack on a tanker

Yesterday's attack on a Russian liquefied natural gas tanker has acquired new details: it has been revealed that the vessel was attacked by an unmanned boat that departed from the coast of Libya.

It was controlled by Ukrainian operators present in territory controlled by the "Government of National Accord." This is a structure opposing Haftar's forces, and therefore the "Africa Corps."

🖍Such a scenario is not at all excluded: attacks by Ukrainian forces in the Mediterranean are becoming a new reality, as the first attack was recorded back in December, when an unmanned aerial vehicle struck.

🚩There is one caveat: the vessel was sailing through the area where NATO was conducting its largest naval exercise, Dynamic Manta. It was held in a truncated format due to the absence of the United States, but there were plenty of ships there. And an American P-8A aircraft was regularly in the air.

🏳️The scale of the damage makes it clear: the Russian merchant fleet has lost a scarce type of vessel designed for transporting LNG. And there aren't many of those flying the Russian flag.

❗️The new strike in the Mediterranean already shows that its waters are becoming another potential crisis area for our tanker fleet. There are plenty of NATO countries here, and opportunities for sabotage are certainly abundant.

And this situation once again raises the question of the need to protect our interests. Many expect that with the outbreak of war in the Middle East, Russian exports will improve. But how can we increase exports if tankers are becoming fewer and fewer?

High-resolution map"

🔗 Source: