Saudi Arabia reserves the right to act militarily against Iran and any trust with Tehran has been shattered, the Saudi foreign minister said early on Thursday (Mar 19), after Riyadh was targeted by Iranian ballistic missiles.

Iran accused Israel of striking its facilities in the huge South Pars gas field on Wednesday in a major escalation in the US-Israeli war that sent oil prices shooting higher, and retaliated by vowing attacks on oil and gas targets throughout the Gulf, firing missiles at Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

In the harshest comments to come out of the Gulf kingdom in nearly three weeks of war, Farhan accused Iran of premeditated hostile actions against its neighbours, both directly and via an array of regional proxies which he urged Tehran to rein in.

“This pressure from Iran will backfire politically and morally and certainly we reserve the right to take military actions if deemed necessary,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told a news conference after a meeting of top diplomats from the region met in Riyadh.

Interceptors were seen fired from near the Riyadh hotel where the conference was held around the time foreign ministers from roughly a dozen countries including Türkiye, the UAE, Jordan, Qatar and Syria gathered for the consultative meeting on the Iran war.

There are scant signs of de-escalation in the now three-week-old US-Israeli war on Iran and conflict has spread across the region, causing unprecedented disruption to global energy supplies.