Iran asks Houthis to block Red Sea if US hits energy sites: Reports

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Iranian officials have asked Yemen’s Houthis to block the Red Sea if the U.S. carries out strikes on Tehran’s energy sites, according to Reuters.

Two senior Iranian sources and a regional source familiar with the matter reportedly told the outlet that the Houthis had been informed of the request, which was discussed within the Islamic Republic’s leadership. The Houthis are already preparing to attack shipping near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in Yemen’s highlands and await the order to attack with missiles and drones.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps representatives in Yemen will control the decision to close the strait, per Reuters.

Attacks on the Red Sea would disrupt the Middle East’s two main oil export routes while the Strait of Hormuz remains closed amid the conflict between the U.S. and Iran. It carries around 7 percent of the world’s energy supply, but much of the Gulf region’s oil has been diverted through the Saudi pipeline in the sea.

Saudi Arabia has diverted 70 percent of its own energy exports through the Red Sea. A disruption of the path of transit could become a larger issue for the energy crisis sparked by the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran.

Regional sources close to Saudi Arabia told Reuters that it was taking threats from Iran and the Houthis seriously. They also noted Iran’s top clerics seek to pressure the U.S. by raising the potential cost of the conflict to the global economy and threatening shipping in the Red Sea.

The Houthis have not formally entered the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran.

The Iran-backed Yemeni militants previously warned in March that they would enter the Iran war if the U.S. or Israel crossed three lines: if Arab countries become allies to the U.S. and Israel, if the Red Sea is used by the U.S. and Israel to carry out attacks against Iran and if “the escalation against the Islamic Republic and the Axis of Jihad and Resistance” were to continue.

“We affirm that our military operations only target the Israeli and American enemy to thwart the Zionist scheme and do not target any Muslim people,” the group said in a statement released by the Yemeni Armed Forces.

The Houthis have carried out attacks on cargo vessels in the Red Sea before. Last July, the militant group’s attacks on civilian cargo vessels, the MV Eternity C and MV Magic Seas, resulted in three deaths, with others injured. The latter ship was also lost to the damage.

The U.S. and Iran resumed tit-for-tat strikes earlier this week after maintaining a fragile ceasefire to allow for negotiations.

U.S. strikes intensified Thursday, with U.S. forces hitting Iranian command centers, air defense sites, missile and drone capabilities and coastal surveillance facilities to “further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten innocent mariners crewing commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz,” according to U.S. Central Command.

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Iran war

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Middle East conflict

Red Sea

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