Gulf Insider
Just three days into Operation Epic Fury, we pointed out what may be the more consequential second-order risk, arguably even more important than the risk of data centers getting bombed (identified a month earlier): Are desalination plants the next targets in the U.S.-Iran war? Not even a week after we raised that question, the first worst-case scenario emerged. On March 8, one week into the conflict, an Iranian attack drone struck a water desalination plant in Bahrain. Fast forward to Friday morning, on the conflict’s 35th day: Kuwaiti authorities claimed Iranian forces targeted a power and desalination plant, sounding even more alarm bells that civilian infrastructure is increasingly moving into the crosshairs. Bloomberg quoted Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy as saying an Iranian strike damaged components of the water desalination plant. This suggests Tehran has exposed the vulnerability of critical water infrastructure across a region that relies heavily on these facilities, which remove salt and impurities from seawater or brackish water for drinking water and other agricultural or industrial uses. Al Jazeera’s Mohamed A. Hussein recently explained why Gulf states heavily rely on water desalination plants: The Gulf states are deserts with no permanent rivers. While they lack rivers, they do […]
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