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.
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.
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, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was “on or ahead of schedule”. He said military operations were expected to be concluded in “weeks, not months”.
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.
Around 10 US service members were injured in an Iranian attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, according to a US official speaking to CNN.
At least two of the injured had shrapnel wounds considered non-life-threatening, and others were “impacted,” though the nature of what happened to them was not immediately clear, another US official said.
Earlier, a spokesperson for IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters said Iranian forces targeted a US military support vessel “at a considerable distance from the port of Salalah in Oman”.
In a statement carried by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency, it added: “As we previously announced, the national sovereignty of the brotherly and friendly country of Oman is respected by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
If regional countries desire security they must not aid Iran’s attackers: Pezeshkian
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned on Saturday that if regional neighbours desired “development and security”, they should not allow “enemies to run the war ” from their territory.
In a post on X, he said:”We have said many times that Iran doesn’t carry out preemptive attacks, but we will 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.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump once again on Saturday expressed ire at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) for not coming to his help in the country’s war with Iran.
Speaking at an event, he said, “NATO wasn’t there for us. We send billions of dollars to them every year to protect them. We would have always been there for them. But based on their actions, I guess we don’t have to be, do we? Why would we be there for them if they’re not there for us?”
Moreover, United States Vice President JD Vance said on Saturday that Washington has achieved most of its military objectives in Iran, while adding that President Donald Trump wants the campaign to continue “for a little while longer” to ensure the Iranian government is significantly weakened.
“The president’s going to keep at it for a little while longer to ensure that once we leave, we don’t have to do this again for a very, very long time,” Vance said in an interview with podcaster Benny Johnson. “We need to neuter them for a very, very long time, and that’s the purpose.”