2026-08-17
25 分钟This is The Guardian.
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Drones started flying over Basra and southern Iraq.
They were targeting Iraq's oil industry.
They hit an oil field operated by BP, as well as a cargo terminal at Basra Airport
and a large compound that houses foreign companies that service the oil sector.
Another attack on March the 6th hit the same compound, striking offices and warehouses used by Halliburton
and KBR, two US companies that have been in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.
The attack sparked a massive fire that lit up the night sky.
Why the war?
It was not a particularly notable day, but in Iraq, the strikes laid bare just how weak the state had become
and how easily sovereignty could be violated, as one senior Iraqi security official put it to me.
For 40 years, the US, Iran and Israel existed in an uneasy equilibrium of neither peace nor war.
As this has come to a sudden, dramatic end, Iraq finds itself caught in the middle.
More attacks on Iraqi energy infrastructure were to come.
On March 11th, an Iranian drone boat attacked two oil tankers off the port of Basra,
setting them ablaze and killing at least one crew member.
In the following days and weeks, a succession of drone strikes hit more oil fields operated by foreign companies.