Dubai (AFP) – A Saudi vessel was attacked in the Red Sea as Tehran-backed Houthi rebels claimed to strike tankers in the waterway, Riyadh’s state media said Thursday, signalling a potential new front in the US-Iran conflict. The Houthis had threatened to blockade Saudi ports on the Red Sea—a key route for oil shipments—while the five-month war had already led to the effective closure of the vital Strait of Hormuz. Washington and Tehran have been battling over the key crude supply route Hormuz, which led to the collapse of a preliminary deal aimed at ending the war that has sent global oil prices climbing.
The Houthis’ claim came as the United States launched fresh strikes on Iranian military targets, prompting retaliatory attacks on US ally Kuwait in the latest round of tit-for-tat fighting. Kuwait’s army said early Thursday it was intercepting “drone threats,” following several days of Iranian strikes on the Gulf nation. The Houthis said they had carried out missile and drone strikes on two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, the Encelia and the Layla, after threatening to blockade Saudi ports. British naval security monitor UKMTO said the master of a tanker reported being hit by an unknown projectile about 70 nautical miles southwest of Al Shuqaiq, causing a fire that the crew was fighting. Saudi Arabia confirmed the Encelia had been struck, without commenting on the other tanker.
It remains unclear how fully the Houthis could enforce a blockade, but the threat could compound the shock of the Hormuz closure, endangering Riyadh’s ability to bypass the strait for some oil exports. In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Thursday they stopped three oil tankers from transiting the waterway, as the United States and Iran vie for control over the route through which around one fifth of the world’s oil passed before the war. “The Strait of Hormuz is under our control…and any ship that is deceived by the US and intends to pass without coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran will suffer the same fate,” Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards said in a statement.
The warning appeared to defy a threat from US President Donald Trump, who said on Wednesday that the United States would bomb Iranian civil infrastructure every time Tehran fires at ships in the strategic strait. “Any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT,” Trump wrote on social media. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran would respond in kind to any attack on its infrastructure. “Our defence doctrine is clear: eye for an eye,” Araghchi wrote on X.
Trump has faced intense political pressure to end the conflict, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday had cost the United States $37.5 billion, up from nearly $29 billion in mid-May. But Trump rejected polls showing the war was unpopular as he headed to an airbase for the return of the remains of four US service personnel. Three were killed in an Iranian attack on a military base in Jordan, and one died during a controlled detonation of an unexploded Iranian drone in Iraq. Iranian state media said Thursday that a US attack killed two people at Shalamcheh on the Islamic republic’s border with Iraq.
Iraq was drawn into the Middle East war from the outset, with strikes blamed on the United States and Israel targeting Iran-backed armed groups, which in turn launched hundreds of attacks on US interests in Iraq and across the Gulf region. “Americans don’t want high gasoline prices but they’re not against the war,” Trump said. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, briefly topped $95 a barrel for the first time in nearly six weeks on Wednesday. Crude futures later shed some gains but were still up about three percent.
US Central Command reported its twelfth consecutive night of strikes against Iranian military targets began at 2130 GMT Wednesday, saying it aimed to “further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting regional waters.” Iranian state media reported Thursday two US missiles hit Bushehr, home to the country’s only civilian nuclear plant and a frequent target of Washington’s strikes. Jordan said it had shot down four missiles and four drones, while air alert sirens sounded in Bahrain, where an AFP correspondent in Manama heard an explosion. Trump said he would “take care of” the Houthis if they followed through on their blockade threat against Saudi ports.
© 2024 AFP
