Houthi attacks and US strikes heighten risk of wider Middle East war
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The US and a number of other nations have formed a maritime task force to respond to the Red Sea attacks.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - United States strikes on targets in Iraq and fresh attacks by Houthi militants on shipping in the Red Sea
The Pentagon said on late Dec 25 that its forces launched strikes on three installations in Iraq
Washington said the Iran-backed Iraqi insurgent group was behind an attack that injured three US personnel, leaving one in critical condition.
“While we do not seek to escalate conflict in the region, we are committed and fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities,” Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement. He called it a “necessary and proportionate” response.
Then on Dec 26, Yemen-based Houthi rebels, also backed by Iran, renewed their attacks
And US Central Command said in a social media post on X that a US destroyer and F/A-18 fighter jets shot down 12 attack drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles and two land attack cruise missiles fired by the Houthis over the Southern Red Sea on Dec 26. It said there was no damage to ships nor reported injuries.
The US and a number of other nations have formed a maritime task force
With that assurance, A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, the world’s second-largest container line, said at the weekend that it was preparing to resume shipping through the sea. Still, oil rose Dec 26 as tensions remained high over the shipping disruptions.
Although Iran has denied helping militants attack commercial ships, the Islamic Republic has vowed that Israel will pay a price for an air strike in Syria on Dec 25 that killed a senior commander of its Revolutionary Guard.
“Clearly, the longer the Israeli-Hamas war goes on with this sort of kinetic intensity, the more likely there would be some escalation,” said Mr Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former US official who has advised secretaries of state on the Middle East.
The number of non-state groups, as well as the unpredictability of both Israeli military operations and Iran’s potential responses, makes it difficult to forecast when specific incidents might flare up into a broader escalation.
But Mr Miller said the US would probably be forced to act more assertively if a regional group managed to kill US service members.
“If we’re attacked directly and Americans die, then there’s going to have to be a much, much heavier response,” he said.
The attacks, and other developments around the region, highlight an increasingly difficult balancing act for the Biden administration, which is trying to support Israel in its battle against the militant group Hamas, which killed 1,200 Israelis on Oct 7 and took more than 200 hostages.
Hamas has been designated a terrorist organisation by the US and the European Union.
The US has deployed aircraft carrier strike groups in an effort to deter Iran-backed forces in the region from striking Israel as it pursues an increasingly deadly ground war in densely populated urban areas in Gaza.
But US officials also have put pressure on Israel to wind down its high-intensity operations in Gaza, which have killed about 20,000, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Dec 26 in Washington.
The discussions, according to a White House official, involved the war itself, efforts to release the hostages in Gaza, limiting civilian casualties and planning a future for the region.
The conversation regarding the conflict centred on Israeli forces shifting their focus to the main Hamas targets, the official said.
But for Israeli officials worried about Hezbollah militants in neighbouring Lebanon and other groups in the region, the current conflict already looks like the wider war the US says it is trying to prevent.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in the Knesset that Israel was in the midst of a “multi-front war”, having already been attacked from seven different arenas – Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, Iraq, Yemen and Iran.
“We have already taken action against six of these seven, and I will say now, in the clearest manner possible, that anyone who takes action against us will become a potential target,” he told the foreign affairs and defence committee. “There will be no immunity for anyone.” BLOOMBERG
