Iran has systematically targeted its Arab neighbors’ airports since the start of its retaliatory strikes for U.S. and Israeli attacks, hitting commercial hubs as part of a strategy to build pressure to end the war.
With its survival at stake, the Iranian regime is taking aim at the globally connected nerve center of its Gulf neighbors, largely shutting down air travel in a region that depends on it as an economic lifeline. Those countries use their airports for much of their food imports and to fly in their largely expatriate workforces.
The airports are also key connectors for global transport and cargo. More than 3,400 flights were canceled Sunday across seven airports in the Middle East, according to the flight tracking service Flightradar24.
So far Iran has hit airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the hubs for the Emirates and Etihad airlines in the United Arab Emirates, as well as others in Kuwait and Bahrain.
A pillar of black smoke rose Sunday morning after an Iranian drone strike on the Dubai International Airport, which last year ranked as the world’s busiest for international passengers. All flights were suspended until further notice, the airport said on its website.
Iran also targeted seaports and other critical infrastructure. Drones slammed into high-rise hotels and other buildings in Dubai and residential towers in Bahrain. Iranian threats also choked off the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil corridor, showing how Tehran’s retaliation is starting to have a global impact.
The strikes on airports, seaports and other critical infrastructure show how Iran is aiming to use economic pain in the Gulf to put pressure on the U.S. and Israel to dial back strikes aimed at overthrowing the Iranian regime.
“It is used to inflict a sense of isolation to those countries, to make their residents feel they are on their own and create a panic inside them,” said Yasmine Farouk, the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula project director at International Crisis Group. “The Iranian strategy is to not only regionalize the conflict, but to internationalize this through the Gulf countries from day one.”
Small and wealthy from their vast reserves of oil and gas, Gulf states including the U.A.E. and Qatar have transformed their airports into global hubs that connect Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia and compete for the business of long-haul travelers with other important hubs like London, Singapore, Amsterdam and Istanbul.
Dubai’s airport handled more than 92 million international travelers in 2024, according to Airports Council International, 13 million more than London’s Heathrow, the next busiest. Qatar’s Doha airport was the world’s 10th busiest for international travelers, according to a ranking by the industry group.
Four airport staff were injured in an incident at the Dubai airport, the Emirates’ official news service said. In the capital Abu Dhabi, one person was killed by falling debris after air defenses intercepted a drone targeting the airport there, the state run WAM news agency reported.
Drone strikes also targeted international airports in Kuwait and Bahrain according to authorities in those countries.
Iran’s missile and drone attacks came in response to a campaign of U.S. and Israeli strikes that President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was intended to provoke the overthrow of the Iranian regime. Iran on Sunday confirmed the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a strike the day before.
Iranian retaliation against its Gulf neighbors has long been feared as a possible consequence of any large-scale conflict with Iran. Those countries have come under fire from Iran and its allied militias in the past, but never at the scale of the current conflict. Both Iran and Israel launched strikes on Qatar last year, raising anxieties in the region’s capitals that they could soon be drawn into wider regional conflicts.
The UAE’s Ministry of Defense said Sunday afternoon that its air defenses had handled 165 ballistic missiles, two cruise missiles and 541 Iranian drones in less than a day and a half of combat.
Some Gulf countries, along with regional players Turkey and Egypt, lobbied Trump in recent weeks not to attack Iran due to concerns about instability in the wider region.
Security analysts said the current Iranian strikes were intended to amplify that pressure on the U.S. by coercing Gulf countries into calling on the U.S. to call off the attack. The attacks pushed oil prices higher, raising concerns about a global increase in energy prices and inflation.
“They want to incur costs on everyone involved. It’s like a scorched-earth strategy,” said Bader Al-Saif, a professor at Kuwait University and fellow at Chatham House. “They’re trying their best to show that if we’re going down, you’re going down with us.”
The strategy shows signs of backfiring. Gulf governments have closed ranks in opposition to Iranian strikes on their civilian infrastructure. A drone strike killed a foreign worker at a commercial seaport on Sunday in Oman, the country that mediated in talks between the U.S. and Iran in recent weeks in an effort to defuse the crisis.
Hoping to stay out of a war they didn’t want, Gulf Arab states including Saudi Arabia and the Emirates said they wouldn’t allow the U.S. to use their airspace for attacks on Iran. Iranian retaliation has started to test that decision.
Asked on CNN this weekend if Gulf states would allow the use of their airspace in U.S. or Israeli strikes on Iran, the U.A.E.’s Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem Al Hashimy said, “If it needs to come to that, it will come to that.”
Ordinary air travelers have been dumbfounded by the chaos.
Manish Gupta, a 35-year-old engineering manager for a fintech firm in India, rushed to the airport in Dubai around 11:45 a.m. on Saturday, less than two hours after the U.S. and Israel launched their initial attacks, hoping he and his family could catch their flight back to New Delhi.
His taxi was stopped by security personnel as they neared the terminal and told to turn around, he said. They had already checked out of their hotel and had nowhere to go. He scrambled to book a new place to stay, but had no idea how or when they would be able to get home.
“Now we’re just waiting,” he said, “We have no idea how long.”
Write to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com