CAIRO/DUBAI — The risk of an expanded Iran war grew as Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis on Saturday launched their first attacks on Israel since the start of the conflict, as additional US forces reached the Middle East.

Washington has dispatched thousands of marines to the Middle East in the month-old war. The first of two contingents arrived on Friday on an amphibious assault ship, the US military said on Saturday.

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that US officials said the Pentagon was preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran, possibly involving raids by Special Operations and conventional infantry troops. Whether President Donald J. Trump would approve plans for deploying ground troops remained uncertain, the Post reported.

Reuters has reported the Pentagon was considering military operations that could include deploying ground troops in Iran.

LEBANESE JOURNALISTS, RESCUE WORKERS HIT
The war, launched on Feb. 28 with US and Israeli strikes on Iran, has spread across the Middle East, killing thousands and hitting the world economy with the biggest-ever disruption to global energy supplies.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday the US could achieve its aims without ground troops but that it was deploying some to the region so Mr. Trump would have “maximum” flexibility to adjust strategy.

The Pentagon was also expected to deploy thousands of soldiers from the US Army’s 82^nd Airborne Division.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, which hosts talks from Sunday with the Turkish and Saudi foreign ministers on ways to ease regional tensions.

Israel carried out a wave of attacks on Tehran on Saturday, targeting what Israel’s military said was Iranian government infrastructure.

It also hit targets in Lebanon, resuming its war against Iran-backed Hezbollah, killing three Lebanese journalists in a strike on a media vehicle, Lebanon’s Al Manar TV reported, as well as a Lebanese soldier. A follow‑up strike on the rescue workers sent to assist them also caused fatalities.

Israel’s military said it had targeted one of the journalists, accusing him of being part of a Hezbollah intelligence unit and saying he had reported on locations of Israeli soldiers.

Iran kept up attacks on Israel and several Gulf states after hitting an air base in Saudi Arabia on Friday and wounding 12 US military personnel, two of them seriously, in one of the most serious breaches of US air defenses so far.

Air defenses shot down a drone near the residence of the leader of the Iraqi Kurdish ruling party, Masoud Barzani, in Erbil, security sources told Reuters early on Sunday. Security sources said on Saturday that another drone attack had targeted the home of the president of Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

Israel, which regularly faced missile attacks from the Houthis before the war, confirmed a missile had been fired at it from Yemen. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

HOUTHI STRIKES MAY MEAN NEW THREAT TO SHIPPING
The attack pointed to a potential new threat to global shipping, already hit by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, previously a conduit for about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.

The group carried out a second strike on Israel, said Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree, vowing more strikes to come.

The Houthis have shown an ability to strike targets far beyond Yemen and disrupt shipping lanes around the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea, as they did in support of Hamas in the Gaza war.

With US midterm elections due in November, the increasingly unpopular war has weighed on Mr. Trump’s Republican Party. He has appeared eager to end it soon, while also threatening escalation.

Demonstrators took to city streets across the US on Saturday in anti-Trump rallies described by organizers as a call to action against the war on Iran.

Mr. Trump has threatened to hit Iranian power stations and other energy infrastructure if Iran does not open the Strait of Hormuz. But he extended a deadline he had imposed for this week, giving Iran another 10 days to respond.

Iranian threats to attack ships in the Strait have kept most oil tankers from attempting the waterway. Iran has agreed to let an additional 20 Pakistani-flagged vessels pass through the Strait, with two ships permitted to transit daily, said Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar.

Israel has targeted Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. The head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, which has evacuated staff from the Bushehr nuclear power plant on the Gulf coast, said the attacks threatened nuclear safety.

Mr. Pezeshkian said Iran would “retaliate strongly if our infrastructure or economic centers are targeted.”

Iranian attacks were reported in multiple areas across the Gulf, including Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

An Iranian airstrike hit the Israeli village of Eshtaol, near Jerusalem. Seven people were hospitalized, Israel’s ambulance service said. Aluminium Bahrain said its facilities were targeted in an Iranian attack on Saturday, Bahrain’s state news agency reported.

In Iran, media said at least five people were killed in a US-Israeli attack on a residential unit in the northwestern city of Zanjan, and in Tehran, the Iran University of Science and Technology was struck. — Reuters

YAOUNDE — Talks to reform the World Trade Organization (WTO) and extend a moratorium to not impose customs duties on electronic transmissions such as digital downloads entered their final day on Sunday with no breakthrough yet in sight, diplomats said.

Trade ministers are working at a WTO meeting in Cameroon to close the gap between the United States and India over extending the e-commerce moratorium due to expire this month, three diplomats told Reuters.

Extending the moratorium is seen as a test for the WTO’s relevance, following a year of tariff-fueled trade turmoil and major disruptions due ‌to the Middle East conflict.

India indicated it would accept an extension of two years, three diplomats said. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, however, has said Washington was not interested in a temporary extension to the ban, only a permanent one.

Business leaders say an extension is critical to guarantee predictability, fearing duties could otherwise be introduced.

There are suggestions the US could accept a “pathway to permanence” with a 10-year extension, a Western diplomat said. A second said a five- to 10-year extension was being explored, while a third indicated it was unlikely all WTO members would agree to go beyond two years.

A new draft document seen by Reuters on Saturday evening proposes support for developing country members, as well as a review clause.

Extending the moratorium permanently would give the US confidence to remain “fully engaged” in the trade body, the US Ambassador to the WTO, Joseph Barloon, told Reuters ahead of the talks.

“If the moratorium does not get extended, the US will use it as an excuse to beat the WTO on the head,” a fourth senior diplomat said.

REFORMS
The debate comes amid efforts to rework WTO rules to render subsidy use more transparent, make decision taking easier and potentially rethink the so-called Most-Favored-Nation principle that ensures members extend all trade benefits equally to one another.

The US and the European Union argue China in particular has taken advantage of current rules to their detriment.

Meanwhile, decision making under the consensus-based system has often been stymied by individual countries’ objections.

A handful of countries are opposing a detailed work plan on reforms, while most members support it, two senior diplomats said.

“We are frustrated that we are spending a lot of time talking about process, when we want to get on with the real work, reforming the WTO,” a Western diplomat said.

Including into WTO rules an agreement reached by a subset of members aimed at boosting investment in developing countries also remains blocked by India, which said plurilateral accords risk eroding the body’s founding principles. — Reuters

SYDNEY — Australia’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) production remained disrupted, and thousands were without power in the remote northwest on Sunday, more than a week after the Narelle storm system hit the country.

The impact of Narelle, downgraded from a tropical cyclone on Saturday, on LNG plants run by Chevron and Woodside has exacerbated a global LNG supply crunch caused by the month-old Iran war.

Australia became the world’s second-largest LNG exporter when Qatar halted production following damage from Iranian strikes.

Narelle made landfall as a severe tropical cyclone in Queensland state on March 20 and crossed the Northern Territory before hitting Western Australia. The storm made landfall at the Western Australian town of Exmouth on March 27, also impacting the town of Karratha.

Woodside Australia said on Sunday that Narelle was still interrupting production at the company’s Karratha gas plant, the onshore processing facility for the North West Shelf Project.

“We have commenced remobilizing our workforce to some of our offshore facilities and inspections will inform startup processes and timing,” a company spokesperson said in a statement, adding that “production at the North West Shelf Project will recommence once it is safe to do so.”

Production was unaffected at its Macedon and Pluto facilities, the spokesperson added.

Chevron did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday. On Saturday, it said it was working to restore production at its Gorgon and Wheatstone gas facilities following production outages due to Narelle.

Gorgon is Australia’s largest LNG export facility, producing 15.6 million metric tons a year with three processing trains, while Wheatstone has two trains producing 8.9 million tons.

Power remained out late on Saturday in Exmouth, a town of 2,800 people some 1,100 kilometers (700 miles) north of West Australia’s state capital Perth, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services said.

State-owned Horizon Power said extra crews were on their way to Exmouth “to support local crews to restore power to affected properties as soon as it is safe to do so.”

Exmouth, a gateway to the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef, suffered significant damage in the cyclone but no one was injured, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported. — Reuters