Iran promises to stop shelling neighbors, Dubai airport closed: eighth day of war

The war in the Middle East lasts for the eighth day. The main events of the day - in this material.

- Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian said in a televised address that the Iranian armed forces have been instructed "not to attack or launch missiles at neighboring countries unless an attack is launched from there" against Iran, Bloomberg reports.

Iran's president also apologized to Gulf countries that have been the targets of Iranian missiles and drones in the past week. He suggested that the indiscriminate attacks were caused by miscommunication within the armed forces.

- The Iranian president's statement came in the wake of repeated attacks on Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Saturday morning, the Associated Press noted. According to the agency, immediately after the broadcast of the president's address, Iranian state television returned to praising the ongoing attacks in the region. Bloomberg writes in its online coverage that sirens sounded and missile alarms went off in Bahrain and Qatar around the same time as the address.

It is unclear what influence the president or the country's three-member interim council of leaders has over the armed forces, AP noted. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reports only to the supreme leader, but the latter was killed in a February 28 airstrikes.

- Dubai-based airline Emirates has again suspended flights that were scheduled to resume on Saturday. The decision was taken after the UAE intercepted a projectile in its airspace early Saturday morning and reported a "minor incident" of debris.

According to AP, an explosion was heard at Dubai International Airport, the world's busiest in terms of international flights, and passengers had to take shelter in the airport's rail tunnels.

Emirates is trying to restore flights from Dubai after several days of downtime caused by the war. According to Bloomberg, the airline recommended that passengers with confirmed tickets for the afternoon drive to the airport.

Updated

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor