DUBAI/LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) - Standard Chartered ( SCBFF )

has begun evacuating staff from offices in Dubai and

told them to work from home, two sources said on Wednesday, as

lenders step up precautionary measures following an Iranian

warning that Tehran will target U.S. and Israeli banks in the

region.

British bank Standard Chartered ( SCBFF ) has a large presence in the

United Arab Emirates, with Dubai now a large financial hub for

leading international banks including JPMorgan ( JPM ) and HSBC ( HSBC )

, as well as law firms and asset managers.

Iran will target economic and banking ​interests linked to the

U.S. ‌and Israel in the region, after an attack on an Iranian

bank, a ​spokesperson for Tehran's Khatam al-Anbiya military

command headquarters said ​on Wednesday.

Many staff at foreign and local businesses had been told by

their employers to work from home following U.S. and Israeli

attacks on Iran, which prompted Tehran to fire missiles at

targets across the Middle East, causing damage and deaths across

the Gulf and travel chaos.

The creation of the Dubai International Financial Centre

(DIFC) in 2004 kickstarted Dubai's push to draw financial firms.

By the end of 2025, DIFC hosted more than 290 banks, 102 hedge

funds, 500 wealth management firms and 1,289 family-related

entities.

Like many international lenders such as StanChart, HSBC ( HSBC ) has

also sought to expand across the Gulf, and has highlighted the

region as key to its wider group strategy of capitalising on

inter-regional global deal and capital flows to boost the bank's

overall profitability.

Georges Elhedery, HSBC's ( HSBC ) CEO, said on Monday that the bank's

"conviction in the GCC's (Gulf Cooperation Council) fundamentals

and its future is unchanged", in some of the first comments from

an international bank boss on the growing crisis.

"The safety of our colleagues and customers remain our top

priority," HSBC ( HSBC ) said in a statement on Wednesday. "We are

actively following government guidelines alongside our internal

plans to manage working arrangements. We are communicating

safety advice with colleagues as appropriate."

Separately, HSBC ( HSBC ) closed all branches in Qatar until further

notice, according to a customer notice.

A spokesperson for JPMorgan ( JPM ) declined to comment.