Las monarquías del Golfo son reinos de petróleo, gas y agua salada.

Son Estados supermillonarios, pero tienen una gran debilidad. Kuwait, Arabia Saudita, Bahréin, los Emiratos Árabes Unidos, Qatar y Omán carecen de suficiente agua potable natural.

Nadan en petróleo, pero no en agua dulce. Dependen, con diferentes matices, necesidades y urgencias, de las numerosas plantas desalinizadoras construidas en la región.

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Irán lo sabe. Esa es una carta marcada que los ayatollah guardan en su búnker más secreto. Mientras buscan incendiar el Estrecho de Ormuz, por donde pasa el 20% del comercio petrolero mundial, el objetivo es extender el caos económico a todo el mundo.

El domingo pasado dio una primera muestra de lo que podría venir: bombardeó una planta desalinizadora en Bahréin, un país que alberga a la Quinta Flota de los Estados Unidos.

“La interrupción intencional de la infraestructura hídrica constituye una clara violación del derecho internacional humanitario y, ante todo, una carga para los civiles, quienes carecen de iniciativa y capacidad de decisión en esta guerra”, alertó a TN el científico iraní Kaveh Madani, exsubdirector del Departamento de Medio Ambiente de Irán y actual director del Instituto para el Agua, el Ambiente y la Salud (INWEH) de las Naciones Unidas.

El agua, el recurso más preciado

El agua es otra batalla estratégica para presionar a las monarquías del Golfo, aliadas de Estados Unidos. Es un recurso esencial. Irán también tiene enormes problemas hídricos por una extensa sequía que llevó a las autoridades a pensar en trasladar Teherán, la capital.

“Todo el mundo piensa en Arabia Saudita y en sus vecinos como petroestados. Pero yo los llamo reinos del agua salada. Son superpotencias hídricas creadas por el ser humano y alimentadas por combustibles fósiles. Es a la vez un logro monumental del siglo XX y una forma particular de vulnerabilidad”, resumió Michael Christopher Low, director del Middle East Center de la Universidad de Utah, citado por Euronews.

El académico Abdullah al-Arian, de la Universidad de Georgetown, en Qatar, advirtió a TN que “el riesgo de una escalada” de este tipo está latente y más aún si se extienden los ataques estadounidenses e israelíes.

“Irán busca aumentar los costos de esta guerra para los países vecinos e incluso para la economía global, en un intento de obligar a Estados Unidos a retractarse de su política de cambio de régimen y, en última instancia, a poner fin a sus ataques”, afirmó.

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Al-Arian, especialista en historia de la política estadounidense hacia Medio Oriente, dijo que “las represalias iraníes intentaron reconfigurar el panorama de seguridad en los países del Golfo y perturbar cada vez más los viajes, el comercio e incluso la vida cotidiana en países que actúan como importantes centros de la economía global”.

“Este tipo de ataque supondría una gran presión sobre el suministro de agua de estos países y requeriría planes de contingencia para fuentes alternativas de agua», indicó.

La dependencia hídrica de los países del Golfo

Irán atacó en los últimos días infraestructura energética de los Emiratos Árabes Unidos y Kuwait que causaron daños a plantas desalinizadoras. El domingo un dron iraní había golpeado a una planta en Bahréin, según denunció el gobierno de ese país. Teherán también denunció ataques de este tipo en su territorio.

Un informe del Centro Árabe de Washington, citado por el diario El Mundo, reveló que los estados del Consejo de Cooperación del Golfo producen el 40% del total de agua desalinizada del mundo.

Según el reporte, el país más vulnerable del área es Kuwait. El 90% de sus recursos hídricos sale de sus complejas plantas desalinizadoras que toman el agua de mar, la procesan y la convierten en agua dulce. Omán lo sigue con un 86% y Arabia Saudita con el 70%. El menos dependiente es Qatar.

En el área del Golfo hay 450 plantas desalinizadoras que surten a unas 100 millones de personas. Según el periódico español, las monarquías del área gastaron más de U$S 50.000 millones en inversiones en este sector entre 2004 y 2024.

Otro blanco posible: el sistema financiero y bancario

Pero no solo el agua está en la mira de Irán. También el sistema bancario y financiero.

Las Fuerzas Armadas iraníes acusaron el miércoles a Estados Unidos e Israel de atacar un banco estratégico del país utilizado para pagar salarios a efectivos del ejército.

Según advirtió el mando unificado de las Fuerzas Armadas, este ataque “ilegítimo y no convencional” podría tener una “respuesta recíproca y dolorosa”.

Además, pidió a la población en Medio Oriente a no aproximarse a un kilómetro de bancos estadounidenses o israelíes.

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La amenaza fue tomada muy en serio en las monarquías del Golfo.

El grupo financiero estadounidense Citi y numerosas empresas occidentales, como la consultora Deloitte, pidieron a sus empleados evacuar sus oficinas en el Centro Financiero Internacional de Dubái (DIFC), reveló AFP.

La consultora británica PwC anunció que cerrará hasta nuevo aviso sus oficinas en Arabia Saudita, Qatar, Emiratos Árabes Unidos y Kuwait.

JERUSALEM: Iran proxy Hezbollah fired some 200 missiles and drones into the Jewish state overnight and into Thursday in what Israeli media described as an «integrated Hezbollah and Iran joint attack.»

The attacks prompted fierce retaliatory strikes from the Israeli Defense Forces into Hezbollah strongholds in the Beirut suburbs.

The Israel Defense Forces said, «The IDF is operating with determination against the Hezbollah terrorist organization following its deliberate decision to attack Israel on behalf of the Iranian regime. The IDF will not tolerate any harm to Israeli civilians and will forcibly respond against any threat posed to the State of Israel.»

Calling its new operation «Eaten Straw,» the terror group claimed to have targeted Israeli military sites in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, among other targets.

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Matthew Levitt, a leading scholar on Hezbollah from the Washington Institute, told Fox News about Eaten Straw. «The term comes from a Koran verse about destroying one’s enemies to the point that they are destroyed like grains of straw husks. In fact, it is going to lead to a massive Israel response.»

Just days prior to Wednesday’s attacks, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun charged Hezbollah with pushing Lebanon into becoming  «a second Gaza.»

An Israeli security expert from the Israel Alma Research and Education Center, Sarit Zehavi, told Fox News Digital, that «I think that Hezbollah is trying to scare Israel from launching further operations and I truly hope that we will not be afraid, and our government will do what it has to do.»

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A fireball rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight March 10 to 11, 2026. (Fadel itani / AFP via Getty Images)

The Lebanese armed forces also failed to meet President Trump’s deadline to disarm Hezbollah terrorist organization in 2025. 

The Lebanese government announced on Tuesday that it is interested in direct talks with Israel to end the current conflict with Hezbollah, yet one Israeli official claimed Beirut was not «affecting Hezbollah’s behavior in any way,» the Times of Israel cited a report from news site Y-Net reported.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon, speaking Wednesday, told members of the United Nations Security Council in New York that, «Lebanon now faces two options: either the Lebanese government takes real actions and restrains Hezbollah, or Israel uses its force to dismantle this terrorist organization. There is no other option.»

Edy Cohen, a Lebanese-born Israeli scholar of Hezbollah, dismissed the Lebanese government overtures to Israel as political theater. He referenced the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah that concluded with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, requiring the Lebanese state and army to disarm Hezbollah, as a failed effort.

A woman uses a mobile phone as she lies on a mattress in a railway station used as an underground bomb shelter in Tel Aviv on March 10, 2026. (Olympia De Maismont/AFP via Getty Images)

Cohen told Fox News Digital: «I don’t believe the Lebanese government. It is a game between them and Hezbollah. The Lebanese offered, for the first time since 1982, it would agree to dialogue with Israel. The first condition is a ceasefire. Hezbollah told the Lebanese government give the Israelis this offer. Hezbollah wants to stop this war. And that is how the government of Lebanon jokes about us.»

Speaking during a meeting of the United Nations Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Lebanese Ambassador Ahmad Arafa told the council, «The Lebanese people do not want war, and the Lebanese government is moving forward in implementing its decisions and will not backtrack,» The National reported. 

According to the National report, Arafa said, «In our modern history, no Lebanese government has demonstrated this level of courage and determination to reclaim the state authority, to restrict weapons to legitimate state institutions and to extend the state’s control exclusively through its own forces over all Lebanese territory.»

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An Israeli official told the Times of Israel that «The Lebanese government needs to get a grip on their country or Hezbollah parts of Beirut will soon look like Gaza.»

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents busted a South Texas human smuggling ring, resulting in the arrests and sentencing of gangbangers who kidnapped a family and sexually assaulted a pregnant mother.

Rodolfo Daniel De Hoyos, 22, a human smuggler who goes by the nickname «Rufles,» was sentenced to more than 14 years in prison on Monday for conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens, causing serious bodily injury and placing lives in jeopardy. The sentencing was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas on Tuesday.

De Hoyos is the fifth of nine human smugglers arrested in Kinney County, Texas, as a result of an investigation by ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) with the cooperation of the Texas Department of Public Safety and several other law enforcement agencies. The investigation is part of the Trump administration’s Operation Take Back America.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, De Hoyos was involved in the kidnapping and attempted extortion of a family of illegal immigrants, consisting of a man, a pregnant woman and a seven-year-old child. The office said the smugglers sexually assaulted the pregnant woman and held the family for ransom. They obtained at least $1,000 from a relative and further threatened to kill the seven-year-old child and sell the unborn baby if additional payments were not made.

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De Hoyos was first arrested in 2021 by a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper who observed him transporting three passengers wearing dirty clothing, hiking boots and camouflage backpacks. At the time, De Hoyos admitted the three passengers were illegal aliens and that he was being paid $1,500 to transport them to Del Rio. He was arrested again in August 2023 in relation to the kidnapping of the family.

Besides De Hoyos, four others have been sentenced. Texas man Juan Antonio Flores, 36, was sentenced to more than 17 years for his role in coordinating the smuggling trips. Two other co-conspirators, Tomas Estrada-Torres, 47, and Nelson Abilio Castro-Zelaya, received sentences of more than 12 years and 15 years, respectively.

Meanwhile, a 23-year-old Guatemalan national, Edwin Alfredo Barrientos-Mateo, nicknamed «Waches,» was sentenced to 30 years in prison in connection with the smuggling ring.

According to Simmons’ office, four other co-conspirators — Ambar Obregon, Pedro Ruiz Gonzalez, Armando Garcia-Martinez and Anthony Ballones Jr. — have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

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ICE Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement and Removal Operations officers during an immigration enforcement operation in the Houston area. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Besides ICE HSI and the Texas Department of Public Safety, U.S. Border Patrol, the Eagle Pass Police Department, the Austin Police Department, the Houston Police Department, and the Comal County Sheriff’s Office also assisted with the investigation.

In a word of caution to would-be illegal aliens, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas Justin Simmons said that «alien smuggling organizations care nothing about the hopes and dreams of those they smuggle.»

«When they look at an illegal alien, all they see is a dollar sign,» he went on, adding, «Do not trust them with your life because the only life they really care about is their own.»

This week, Simmons’ office also announced that 36-year-old Mexican national Pedro Luis Martinez-Jaquez was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison for his leadership role in a conspiracy to transport hundreds of illegal aliens, resulting in at least one death.

Simmons called Martinez-Jaquez «one of the most prolific facilitators of alien smuggling in the last decade.» He said that over the course of an 18-month operation, Martinez-Jaquez made hundreds of thousands of dollars transporting illegal aliens into the U.S.

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President Donald Trump visits the U.S.-Mexico border during his first term in Otay Mesa, Calif., on Sept. 18, 2019. (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)

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Both stings were the result of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative launched by the Trump administration last year to «achieve total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations.»