Iran military warns UAE over attacks on disputed Gulf islands

Cranes, a storage tank of an oil refinery and wind turbines at the deep-water commercial and industrial port of Fos-sur-Mer, near Marseille, southern France, on March 20, 2026. [AFP]

Iran's military warned the United Arab Emirates on Saturday against allowing attacks from its territory on two disputed islands in the Gulf, near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

"We warn the United Arab Emirates if any further aggression originates from its territory against the Iranian islands of Abu Musa and Greater Tunb in the Persian Gulf, Iran's powerful armed forces will subject Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE to heavy strikes," the military's operational command Khatam Al-Anbiya said in a statement carried by Tasnim news agency.

Abu Musa and the Greater Tunb islands, which are controlled by Iran but claimed by the UAE, have long been a source of dispute between the two countries.

The islands are located in the Gulf near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, through which normally about a fifth of the world's oil passes.

But marine traffic has been disrupted by the regional war, which began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 and has since spread across the Middle East.

Iran accuses Gulf states of allowing US forces to carry out attacks from their territory, and has launched missile and drone strikes against what it calls US interests in those countries throughout the war.