Saudi Arabia has intensified direct engagement with Iran to help contain a war in the Middle East, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing several European officials, as the Iranian campaign against the Gulf Arab states has continued to wreak severe economic consequences.

Saudi officials in recent days have used their diplomatic backchannel to Iran with increased urgency to ease tensions and keep the conflict from worsening, the report said.

It added that several regional and European nations are backing the Saudi efforts, the officials quoted in the report said.

According to the report, the Saudi-Iranian talks have so far involved both security and diplomatic officials, though the sources said that they were unsure if more senior officials were involved.

So far, Iran has not shown an inclination to negotiate an end to the conflict with the US and Israel, the report noted.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report, Bloomberg added.

While Iran has targeted Israel and the US military with its retaliatory missile and drone strikes, it has also launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and thousands of drones at the Arab states in the Gulf, targeting energy infrastructure and civilian sites as well as US bases in the region, in an apparent bid to press Arab leaders to lobby for an end to the war.

Against the backdrop of Iran’s campaign against the Gulf states, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a rare phone call this week with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, the Kan public broadcaster reported Friday.

Iran’s missile and drone fire on the Gulf continued Friday, with the Saudi defense ministry saying its forces intercepted several projectiles, both ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as three drones, east of its capital Riyadh.

Iranian strikes also targeted Iraq on Friday, with an Iraqi security official saying that four drones struck Basra airport and two oil facilities in the south of the country.

“One drone crashed into the cargo terminal at Basra airport,” the official said, adding that two others hit a US company in the Burjesia oil complex, and a fourth struck the Rumaila oil field, where energy giant BP operates.

Only nine tankers said to pass Hormuz this week

In addition to targeting Gulf energy and civilian infrastructure with missiles and drones, Iran has all but completely shut the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial chokepoint through which some 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas transits.

Only nine oil tankers, cargo and container ships, some of which at times concealed their position, have been recorded crossing the key maritime passage since Monday, according to MarineTraffic data analyzed by AFP.

Only vessels that emitted at least one signal on either side of the Strait of Hormuz were counted by AFP, excluding any others that may have travelled with their signals entirely concealed for a long period of time.

Attacks since Sunday have multiplied against ships navigating Hormuz, raising concerns about a lasting impact on the global economy as the US-Israeli war on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory attacks across the Gulf region have upended the world’s energy sector.

Iran armed forces spokesman Abolfazl Shekarchi told Iranian state broadcaster IRIB, “We emphasize the security of the Strait of Hormuz and control it, but we will not close it.”

Despite the conflict, “some tankers are still traveling east and west through the strait, with a number of voyages occurring under AIS (automatic identification system) blackouts,” said Matt Wright, an analyst at Kpler, which publishes MarineTraffic, on Wednesday.

Most carriers have suspended their operations and the passage remains perilous, as several ships have been targeted by Iranian drones and missiles since the conflict erupted last week.

Gulf officials ‘frustrated’ with US over lack of notice ahead of war

As the Gulf has come under relentless attack, officials from several US-allied countries in the region have complained they were not given adequate time to prepare for the torrent of Iranian drones and missiles bombarding their countries in retaliation for strikes launched by the US and Israel.

Officials from two Gulf countries said their governments were disappointed in the way the US has handled the war, particularly the initial attack on Iran on February 28. They said their countries were not given advance notice of the attack and complained the US had ignored their warnings that the war would have devastating consequences for the entire region.

One of the officials said that Gulf countries were frustrated and even angry that the US military has not defended them enough. He said there is belief in the region that the operation has focused on defending Israel and American troops, while leaving Gulf countries to protect themselves, and said that his country’s stock of interceptors was “rapidly depleting.”

The governments of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates did not respond to requests for comment.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in response: “Iran’s retaliatory ballistic missile attacks have decreased by 90% because Operation Epic Fury is crushing their ability to shoot these weapons or produce more. [US President Donald] Trump is in close contact with all of our regional partners, and the terrorist Iranian regime’s attacks on its neighbors prove how imperative it was that President Trump eliminate this threat to our country and our allies.”

The Pentagon did not respond.

Official reactions by the Gulf Arab countries have been muted, but public figures with close ties to their governments have been openly critical of the US, suggesting that Netanyahu dragged Trump into a needless war.

“This is Netanyahu’s war,” Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, told CNN on Wednesday. “He somehow convinced the [US] president to support his views.”

Pentagon officials conceded this week in closed-door briefings with lawmakers they are struggling to stop waves of drones launched by Iran, leaving some US targets in the Gulf region, including troops, vulnerable.

The Gulf countries have emerged as valuable targets for Iran, well within the range of Iran’s short-range missiles and filled with targets, including American troops, high-profile business and tourist locations and energy facilities, disrupting the world’s flow of oil.

Since the start of the war, Iran has fired at least 380 missiles and over 1,480 drones targeting the five Arab Gulf countries, according to an AP tally based on official statements. At least 13 people have been killed in those countries, according to local officials.

In addition, six US soldiers were killed in Kuwait on Sunday when an Iranian drone strike hit an operations center in a civilian port, more than 10 miles from the main Army base. The husband of one of the slain soldiers, who was part of a supply and logistics unit based in Iowa, said the operations center was a shipping container-style building and had no defenses.

In briefings for members of Congress on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers that the US will not be able to intercept many of the incoming UAVs, especially the Shaheds, according to three people familiar with the briefings.

Bader Mousa Al-Saif, a Kuwait-based analyst with Chatham House, said the US appeared to have underestimated the risk to its Gulf Arab allies, believing American troops and Israel would be the primary targets of Iranian retaliation.

“I don’t think they saw that there would be as much exposure to the Gulf,” he said, saying the lack of a plan to protect the Gulf countries “speaks to US short-sightedness.”

The frustration in some of the Gulf nations is driven in part by the relative success that Israel has had knocking down drones and missiles compared to some of their neighbors, according to a person familiar with the sensitive diplomatic matter who was not authorized to comment publicly.

Their air defense systems are hardly as robust as Israel’s, but according to the person, US officials have been somewhat perplexed that the Gulf countries are still not showing an appetite for delivering a counteroffensive by launching missiles at Iranian targets.

Elliott Abrams, who served as a special representative for Iran and Venezuela at the end of Trump’s first term, said that US national security officials and their Gulf allies were aware that Iran had the capability to carry out significant strikes.

“And the neighbors knew it and were afraid of it. But it was never clear that Iran would actually do it, because they have a lot to lose,” Abrams said. “These attacks will leave long-term enmity, and if they keep up, the Gulf Arabs may start attacking Iran.”

Michael Ratney, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said that while the Gulf countries have an interest in seeing Iran weakened, they also have key concerns about the ongoing war — including the economic damage and instability it is causing and its open-ended nature.

Ratney, who is now a senior adviser in the Middle East program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said: “What comes next? The countries of the Gulf will have to bear the brunt of whatever that is.”

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