The important infrastructure that’s so very important to Middle East nations – and susceptible to Iranian assault

The war in the Middle East has escalated beyond oil and military targets, with strikes over the weekend targeting perhaps the region’s most fundamental infrastructure – plants that turn seawater into drinking water in one of the world’s driest regions.

Over the weekend, both sides targeted these desalination plants, the only reliable water source for millions across the Arabian Peninsula, where there are virtually no natural freshwater sources. Analysts say it is the realisation of a long-feared scenario in the Middle East, with water becoming a weapon of war.

Bahrain accused Iran of striking one of its plants with a drone on Sunday. The attack came a day after Iran said the United States hit a desalination plant on Iran’s Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, cutting water supplies to 30 villages.

While some earlier strikes had come close to threatening the crucial infrastructure, experts said those appeared to be collateral. This weekend’s attacks were the first time either side appeared to deliberately target water infrastructure.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, accused Washington of setting a precedent.

“The US committed a blatant and desperate crime by attacking a freshwater desalination plant,” he wrote on X. “The US set this precedent, not Iran.”

The US has not confirmed or denied the attack. Speaking to reporters, president Donald Trump said he knows “nothing about a desalination plant”, while also seeming to downplay its importance as an issue.

“If they’re complaining about a desalination plant, we complain about the fact that they shouldn’t be chopping babies’ heads off, okay?” he said. That appeared to be a reference to initial claims about the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, which have never been confirmed.

David Michel, senior fellow for water security at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said the shift “marks a significant increase in the potential risk, and signals potentially the willingness and the strategy of the adversaries to hold that critical civilian infrastructure at risk”.

“As the conflict continues, there may be increased intent or increased pressure on decision makers to take that step,” he told The Independent.

The Middle East holds just 2 per cent of the world’s renewable freshwater, yet is home to some of the world’s fastest-growing cities.

With virtually no rivers or reliable rainfall, Gulf states have spent decades building vast networks of desalination plants that convert seawater into drinking water. Kuwait and the UAE get roughly 90 per cent of their drinking water this way, with Oman at 86 per cent and Saudi Arabia at 70 per cent.

Experts say that while these plants are an essential lifeline for Middle East populations, they are fragile, poorly defended and highly vulnerable to attacks.

“Damage to any one part can halt water delivery,” said Lalit Mohan, a water management consultant, noting that vulnerabilities span the plant itself, its power supply and its distribution network. Many are physically integrated with power stations, meaning attacks on electrical infrastructure can halt water production without a direct hit on the plant.

Ed Cullinane, Middle East Editor at Global Water Intelligence, said the plants were as exposed as any other civilian infrastructure in the region.

“Much like oil terminals, ports and other fixed civilian infrastructure, desalination plants are large open-air facilities exposed to the same weapons being used on military and civilian infrastructure across the Gulf. If either side chooses to hit this infrastructure, it would be no better protected than the Dubai hotels and Qatari LNG facilities hit last week.”

Physical attack is not the only threat. Iran has previously demonstrated a willingness to target water systems through cyber means – breaking into a dam control system in New York in 2013 and tampering with multiple US water treatment systems in 2023 and 2024. Michel said the same tactic could be deployed against Gulf desalination infrastructure, with the added advantage that such attacks can be carried out with plausible deniability.

Despite these vulnerabilities being known for decades, Gulf states have struggled to make their water supplies more secure. While countries manage some emergency storage, and Saudi Arabia, due to its size, has the advantage of drawing on plants along its Red Sea coast, any attack on a plant has the capacity to shut the piped supply entirely.

A 2008 US State Department cable, later exposed by WikiLeaks, warned that Riyadh would have to be evacuated within a week if its main desalination plant were seriously damaged. Another 2010 CIA analysis found that more than 90 per cent of the Gulf’s desalinated water came from just 56 plants, each “extremely vulnerable to sabotage or military action”.

Plans for a more secure, unified Gulf-wide water strategy have been discussed but never followed through, experts said.

“There’s a reluctance to coordinate in that fashion,” said Michel, “to interconnect their systems and share water supplies because of continuing suspicions or mistrust.”

Iran, paradoxically, faces the greater long-term water risk. Its reservoirs are severely depleted after years of drought, its rivers among the most stressed in the world, and its cities are competing with agriculture for the same dwindling groundwater. President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned that Tehran may one day have to be evacuated if shortages worsen.

“There is a real danger of a humanitarian crisis in Iran, not just due to the war, but also due to water scarcity,” said Cullinane.

According to the World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, 83 per cent of the Middle East’s population already faces severe water scarcity.

Even without the region’s specific vulnerability, legal experts said the attacks on civilian infrastructure raise serious questions under international humanitarian law.

“Desalination plants are civil objects – they must never be targeted, and doing so is a serious violation of international law,” said Dr Evelyne Schmid, professor of international law at the University of Lausanne. “For all scenarios, there is an obligation to conduct an investigation.”

Putting aside questions of legality, Michel says targeting water infrastructure in this way offers Iran something strategically that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz does not: precision. Where blocking Hormuz inflicts pain on the entire international community, including ally China, which imports heavily from the Gulf, striking desalination plants allows for more targeted escalation.

The ultimate logic is civilian pressure, he said. If people cannot turn on their taps, the question becomes whether to stay or flee.

“If you have no water and you’re worried about where it’s going to come from, that would potentially be a lever that could push populations to call for an end to hostilities,” Michel said.

Iran’s calculation, he added, is that Gulf populations would blame both Iran for the attack and the US and Israel for a conflict forced on countries that now find their cities degraded and their water systems disrupted – and that this, ultimately, pushes them to demand a ceasefire.

Source: independent.co.uk