Iran conflict escalates
- US and Israel have launched strikes on Iranian leadership, nuclear, and ballistic-missile targets amid ongoing conflict. - The conflict has run about 50 days, with reports of Strait of Hormuz closures and attacks on ships. - The IMF cut 2026 global growth and warned supply disruptions will affect freight, energy, and datacentre economics (commonslibrary.parliament.uk).
The United States and Israel struck Iranian leadership, nuclear sites and missile forces on February 28, pushing a long-running shadow war into open regional conflict. (cfr.org) The Council on Foreign Relations says the opening strikes hit Tehran, Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It says Iran then retaliated against U.S. military facilities, Israel and Gulf energy and civilian infrastructure. (cfr.org) Britain’s House of Commons Library says the campaign has targeted Iran’s leadership, armed forces, nuclear programme and ballistic-missile programme, and that the fighting ran through February and March 2026. A separate Commons briefing says the conflict has already disrupted Middle East oil and gas flows. (commonslibrary.parliament.uk) The Strait of Hormuz sits at the mouth of the Gulf, and tankers use it to move oil, gas and fuel into world markets. Reports collected by the Commons Library say fighting there has disrupted shipping, while other accounts describe attacks on ships and a wider shipping crisis in the waterway. (commonslibrary.parliament.uk, milmag.pl) The International Monetary Fund cut its 2026 world growth forecast in its April 14 outlook and said a worse energy shock would drag growth down further. In that adverse case, the fund said global growth would slow to 2.5% in 2026; in a more severe conflict scenario, it would fall to about 2%. (imf.org, imf.org) The IMF said larger and more persistent energy-price increases would also lift 2026 inflation to 5.4% in its adverse scenario. Its economists tied the risk to damage in the conflict region’s energy infrastructure and wider geopolitical tension. (imf.org, imf.org) For freight and data centres, the mechanism is simple: ships reroute when Gulf lanes are unsafe, and electricity costs rise when fuel prices jump. The Commons Library says supply shocks from the conflict are feeding through energy prices into inflation and growth forecasts in economies far from the battlefield. (commonslibrary.parliament.uk, imf.org) The human toll is still contested and moving. Al Jazeera’s live tracker put the preliminary toll in early March at 2,076 dead in Iran, at least 26 in Israel, 13 U.S. soldiers and 28 people in Gulf states, while other outlets and official claims differ. (aljazeera.com) The next marker is whether the fighting stays concentrated on missile sites and shipping lanes or spreads further into energy infrastructure and U.S. bases. The IMF’s April outlook assumes the damage can still be contained; its downside scenarios show how quickly that assumption can fail. (imf.org, cfr.org)
