By Menna AlaaElDin, Nayera Abdallah and Humeyra Pamuk
CAIRO/PARIS, March 28 (Reuters) – Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis launched missiles at Israel on Saturday, their first such attack since the start of the Iran war, heightening the risk that a conflict that has entered its fifth week could expand further across the region.
Speaking earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States expected to conclude military operations within weeks but the Houthis said they would continue their operations until the “aggression” on all fronts ended.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose government hosts a meeting with the Turkish and Saudi foreign ministers on Sunday to seek to ease regional tensions.
But with no sign of a diplomatic breakthrough in sight, the war, launched with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, has spread across the Middle East, killing thousands and hitting the world economy with the biggest-ever disruption to global energy supplies.
On Saturday, Israel said it carried out a wave of strikes on Tehran, targeting what the military said were infrastructure sites belonging to the Iranian government. Iran also kept up its attacks, hitting an air base in Saudi Arabia and wounding 12 U.S. military personnel, two of them seriously.
HOUTHIS CAN STRIKE TARGETS FAR FROM YEMEN
The attack by the Houthis represented a potentially ominous new threat to global shipping, already severely disrupted by the effective closure of the critical Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for around a fifth of world oil supplies.
The group, which has launched regular missile attacks against Israel in recent years, has shown an ability to strike targets far beyond Yemen and disrupt shipping lanes around the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea as they did in support of Hamas in Gaza after October 7, 2023.
On Friday they said they were prepared to act if what they called an escalation against Iran and the “Axis of Resistance” continued in the war.
If the Houthis open a new front in the conflict, one obvious target would be the Bab al-Mandab Strait off the coast of Yemen, a key choke point for sea traffic towards the Suez Canal that could add to the turmoil in world trade.
The disruptions have already rippled across the world, adding to inflation pressures that have squeezed businesses and consumers, including those in the United States.
With crucial midterm elections approaching in November, the increasingly unpopular war has weighed on Trump’s Republican Party and he has appeared eager to end it quickly. Speaking on Friday before the Houthi attack, Rubio said Washington was “on or ahead of schedule”. He said military operations were expected to be concluded in “weeks, not months”.
Rubio also told Group of Seven counterparts in France that European and Asian countries which benefit from trade through the Strait of Hormuz should contribute to efforts to secure free passage, adding to earlier calls by Trump, who said the lack of support from NATO allies had implications for the West’s most important alliance.
“We would have always been there for them, but now, based on their actions, I guess we don’t have to be, do we?” Trump told an investment forum in Miami on Friday. “Why would we be there for them if they’re not there for us? They weren’t there for us.”
The charter underlying the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has long been led by the U.S., says an attack on one member is an attack on all, requiring them to support each other.
But Washington’s allies, which were not consulted before the U.S. and Israeli strikes, have been notably reluctant to be drawn into a war which may still escalate further if Trump decides to deploy ground troops to try to open the Strait of Hormuz.
Rubio said the U.S. could achieve its aims without ground troops but acknowledged it was deploying some to the region “to give the president maximum optionality and maximum opportunity to adjust the contingencies, should they emerge”.
Washington has dispatched two contingents of thousands of Marines to the region, the first of which is due to arrive in coming days on a huge amphibious assault ship. The Pentagon is also expected to deploy thousands of elite airborne soldiers.
MORE STRIKES WHILE TRUMP SPEAKS OF NEGOTIATIONS
As the fighting has continued and the economic impact has mounted, financial markets have reacted with increasing alarm.
Stock markets tumbled sharply on Friday on fears the conflict will drag on, while the Brent crude oil benchmark topped $112, up more than 50% since the war began.
In the U.S., where Trump is politically vulnerable to rising fuel prices, diesel in California hit a record average high of $7.17 a gallon, the American Automobile Association said.
Trump has threatened to hit Iranian power stations and other energy infrastructure if Iran does not open the Strait of Hormuz, a potentially devastating escalation that could trigger similar Iranian strikes against Washington’s Gulf allies. But he has extended a deadline he imposed for this week, giving Iran another 10 days to respond.
In a post in English on the social media platform X, Iran’s President Pezeshkian said it would “retaliate strongly if our infrastructure or economic centers are targeted”.
“To the countries of the region: If you want development and security, don’t let our enemies run the war from your lands,” he said.
Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey have been relaying messages between the warring sides, though Tehran has repeatedly asserted that it has not been negotiating with Washington. Two people familiar with the back-channel efforts expressed doubt that direct talks would take place any time soon.
As the war moved into its fifth week, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain reported missile attacks early on Saturday, with five people injured and fires reported after a missile was intercepted near Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa Port, one of the Gulf’s main deepwater container ports. Kuwait International Airport was also targeted by multiple drone attacks that caused significant damage to its radar system, state news agency KUNA said on Saturday.
At least five people were killed and seven injured after a U.S.-Israeli attack on a residential unit in Iran’s northwestern city of Zanjan, Iranian media reported early on Saturday. The Iran University of Science and Technology in Tehran was also struck, media reported.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Lincoln Feast and James Mackenzie; Editing by William Mallard, Edwina Gibbs and Keith Weir)
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