Iran-backed Houthis enter the month-old war and could further threaten shipping

Iran­ian-backed Houthi rebels en­tered the month-old war in the Mid­dle East on Sat­ur­day by claim­ing a mis­sile launch that Is­rael said it in­ter­cept­ed. Pak­istan said re­gion­al pow­ers plan to meet Sun­day on how to end the war, while Iran ex­pressed scep­ti­cism about the diplo­mat­ic ef­forts.

The war has threat­ened glob­al sup­plies of oil, nat­ur­al gas and fer­til­iz­er and dis­rupt­ed air trav­el. Iran’s grip on the strate­gic Strait of Hor­muz has shak­en mar­kets and prices. The Unit­ed States and Is­rael con­tin­ue to strike Iran, whose re­tal­ia­to­ry at­tacks have tar­get­ed Is­rael and neigh­bor­ing Gulf Arab states.

The Houthis’ en­try could fur­ther hurt glob­al ship­ping if they again tar­get ves­sels in the Bab el-Man­deb Strait off the Red Sea, through which about 12% of the world’s trade typ­i­cal­ly pass­es.

There could be lim­it­ed re­lief in sight af­ter Iran on Fri­day agreed to al­low hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid and agri­cul­tur­al ship­ments through the Strait of Hor­muz fol­low­ing a re­quest from the Unit­ed Na­tions. U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, mean­while, has giv­en Iran un­til April 6 to re­open the strait.

Is­raeli airstrikes con­tin­ued as the mil­i­tary said it tar­get­ed Iran’s naval weapons pro­duc­tion fa­cil­i­ties. Iran fired mis­siles to­ward Is­rael, and res­cue ser­vice Ma­gen David Adom said 11 peo­ple were light­ly wound­ed in a town near Jerusalem.

Houthi in­volve­ment could fur­ther com­pli­cate the war

Houthi Brig. Gen. Yahya Sa­ree said on the rebels’ Al-Masir­ah satel­lite tele­vi­sion sta­tion that they launched a bar­rage of mis­siles to­ward what he de­scribed as “sen­si­tive Is­raeli mil­i­tary sites” in south­ern Is­rael.

If the Houthis in­crease at­tacks on com­mer­cial ship­ping, as they have in the past, it would fur­ther push up oil prices and desta­bi­lize “all of mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty,” said Ahmed Na­gi, a se­nior Yemen an­a­lyst at the In­ter­na­tion­al Cri­sis Group. “The im­pact would not be lim­it­ed to the en­er­gy mar­ket.”

The Bab el-Man­deb, at the south­ern tip of the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la, is cru­cial for ves­sels head­ing to the Suez Canal through the Red Sea. Sau­di Ara­bia has been send­ing mil­lions of bar­rels of crude oil a day through it be­cause the Strait of Hor­muz is ef­fec­tive­ly closed.

Houthi rebels at­tacked over 100 mer­chant ves­sels with mis­siles and drones, sink­ing two ves­sels, be­tween No­vem­ber 2023 and Jan­u­ary 2025, say­ing it was at­tack­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Pales­tini­ans in Gaza dur­ing the war there be­tween Is­rael and Hamas.

The Houthis’ lat­est in­volve­ment would com­pli­cate the de­ploy­ment of the USS Ger­ald R. Ford, the air­craft car­ri­er that ar­rived in Croa­t­ia on Sat­ur­day for re­pairs. Send­ing the car­ri­er to the Red Sea could draw at­tacks sim­i­lar to those on the USS Dwight D. Eisen­how­er in 2024 and the USS Har­ry S. Tru­man in 2025.

The Houthis have held Yemen’s cap­i­tal, Sanaa, since 2014. Sau­di Ara­bia launched a war against the Houthis on be­half of Yemen’s ex­iled gov­ern­ment in 2015, and the rebels have had an un­easy cease­fire with Sau­di Ara­bia.

At­tempts at diplo­ma­cy as US sends more troops to the re­gion

Pak­istan said Sat­ur­day that Sau­di Ara­bia, Turkey and Egypt will send top diplo­mats to Is­lam­abad for talks aimed at end­ing the war, ar­riv­ing Sun­day for a two-day vis­it for “in-depth dis­cus­sions on a range of is­sues, in­clud­ing ef­forts to de-es­ca­late ten­sions.”

Pak­istan’s Prime Min­is­ter She­hbaz Sharif said he and Iran­ian Pres­i­dent Ma­soud Pezeshkian held “ex­ten­sive dis­cus­sions” on re­gion­al hos­til­i­ties.

But the Iran­ian for­eign min­is­ter, Ab­bas Araghchi, told his Turk­ish coun­ter­part by phone that Tehran was scep­ti­cal about re­cent diplo­mat­ic ef­forts. Iran­ian state-run me­dia said Araghchi ac­cused the Unit­ed States of mak­ing “un­rea­son­able de­mands” and ex­hibit­ing “con­tra­dic­to­ry ac­tions.”

Trump en­voy Steve Witkoff has said Wash­ing­ton de­liv­ered a 15-point “ac­tion list” to Iran for a pos­si­ble cease­fire, with a pro­pos­al to re­strict Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram — the is­sue at the heart of ten­sions with the U.S and Is­rael — and re­open the Strait of Hor­muz. Tehran re­ject­ed it and pre­sent­ed a five-point pro­pos­al that in­clud­ed repa­ra­tions and recog­ni­tion of its sov­er­eign­ty over the wa­ter­way.

Mean­while, U.S. ships with some 2,500 Marines trained in am­phibi­ous land­ings have ar­rived, adding to the largest U.S. force in the re­gion in over 20 years. And at least 1,000 para­troop­ers from the 82nd Air­borne, trained to land in hos­tile ter­ri­to­ry to se­cure key po­si­tions and air­fields, have been or­dered to the Mid­dle East.

Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio has said the U.S. “can achieve all of our ob­jec­tives with­out ground troops.”

US troops suf­fer ca­su­al­ties at Sau­di base, AP sources say

More than two dozen U.S. troops have been wound­ed in Iran­ian at­tacks on Sau­di Ara­bia’s Prince Sul­tan Air Base in the past week, ac­cord­ing to two peo­ple briefed on the mat­ter who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they were not au­tho­rized to com­ment pub­licly.

Iran fired six bal­lis­tic mis­siles and 29 drones at the base Fri­day, in­jur­ing at least 15 troops, in­clud­ing five se­ri­ous­ly, they said.

The base, about 96 kilo­me­tres (60 miles) from the Sau­di cap­i­tal of Riyadh, came un­der at­tack twice ear­li­er in the week, in­clud­ing a strike that wound­ed 14 U.S. troops, ac­cord­ing to the peo­ple briefed on the mat­ter.

Over 300 U.S. ser­vice mem­bers have been wound­ed in the war.

Death toll climbs

Iran­ian au­thor­i­ties say more than 1,900 peo­ple have been killed in the Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic, while 19 have been re­port­ed dead in Is­rael.

In Lebanon, where Is­rael has start­ed an in­va­sion in the south, of­fi­cials said more than 1,100 peo­ple have been killed since the start of the war.

At least 13 U.S. troops have been re­port­ed killed. In Iraq, where Iran­ian-sup­port­ed mili­tia groups have en­tered the con­flict, 80 mem­bers of the se­cu­ri­ty forces have died.

In Gulf states, 20 peo­ple have been killed and four oth­ers in the oc­cu­pied West Bank. —DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP)

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Sto­ry by SAMY MAGDY, AAMER MAD­HANI and JON GAM­BRELL | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Samy Magdy re­port­ed from Cairo and Aamer Mad­hani from Wash­ing­ton. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Kon­stan­tin Toropin in Wash­ing­ton, Cara An­na in Lowville, New York, and Mu­nir Ahmed in Is­lam­abad con­tributed to this re­port.