What we know as markets brace for turmoil

Launched by the United States and Israel The most aggressive attack ever Iranian targets over the weekend killed the Islamic State’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, thrusting the region into a widening conflict with Tehran retaliating with air strikes across the Middle East.

Here’s what we know so far as investors brace for the impacts when markets open after the weekend.

Iranian official media announced Khamenei died at dawn on Sunday.

Trump, who is taking the biggest foreign policy gamble of his presidency ahead of the midterm elections in November, It’s called murder “The only great opportunity for the Iranian people to restore their country.”

Trump also warned on Truth Social that “violent and targeted bombing will continue without interruption all week, or as long as necessary to achieve our goal of peace across the Middle East and throughout the world!”

The president said on Saturday that the aggressive strikes were aimed at ending an operation The Iranian threat has been ongoing for decades And to ensure that it is unable to develop a nuclear weapon.

Iran They responded with an unprecedented wave of strikes Throughout the Middle East, targeting several neighboring countries that host US military bases, in addition to Israel.

In Israel, sirens and cell phone warnings sent people rushing to air raid shelters when Iran launched a series of missile attacks, most of which were intercepted.

Explosions were reported in the UAE, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, with footage showing people fleeing a smoke-filled corridor at Dubai International Airport.

Drone strikes caused damage and casualties at Dubai International Airport and Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi.

This comes after the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced, in A statement She said on Saturday that the country “will not hesitate” in its response to the US-led strikes. Separately, a spokesman for the Iranian Armed Forces said It is said He warned that “we will teach Israel and the United States a lesson that they have never experienced before in their history.”

In Sunday’s Social Truth post, meanwhile, Trump Tehran warned against any further retaliatory actionHe threatened to “strike them with unprecedented force” if Iran continues to strike.

Oil market participants were closely watching watch the conflict, This threatens to cause a major shock to oil supplies in the Middle East.

Bob McNally, a former White House energy adviser to former President George W. Bush, predicted future crude oil prices could rise by $5 to $7 per barrel when trading begins at 6pm EST on Sunday, if there is no sign of de-escalation.

Iran is the fourth-largest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and could threaten to make the Strait of Hormuz – a narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea – unsafe for commercial traffic. This could lead to oil prices rising above $100 per barrel, McNally said.

More than 14 million barrels per day will flow through the strait in 2025, or a third of the world’s total seaborne crude oil exports. About three-quarters of those barrels went to China, India, Japan and South Korea. China, the second largest economy in the world, receives half of its crude oil imports from the Strait.

Airlines Hundreds of flights cancelled While dozens of others were rerouted mid-flight due to the closure of airspace over a large area of ​​the Middle East. Some services have been temporarily suspended until at least the end of next week.

Travel chaos has spread to Brazil and Australia. The airspace closure also forced airlines to cancel flights that normally transit the region.

More than 1,800 flights in and out of Middle Eastern countries were canceled on Saturday, according to aviation data company Cirium, with another 1,400 flights in and out of the region canceled on Sunday.

Qatar Airways said it had temporarily suspended all flights, while Dubai-based Emirates Airlines said service at Dubai International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the world, had been halted.

— CNBC’s Spriha Srivastava, Spencer Kimball, Pippa Stevens and Leslie Joseph contributed to this story.