Hormuz crisis widens as Iran-backed fronts hit Saudi, Iraq and Red Sea

Ankara,UPDATED: Jul 30, 2026 23:00 IST

Several parts of the Middle East are seeing fresh violence linked to the wider war between the United States and Iran, with the current focus on the Strait of Hormuz. In recent days, Yemen's Houthi rebels said they attacked Saudi oil facilities, Saudi Arabia blamed Iran-backed militias in Iraq and joined the US in bombing them, Iran fired missiles at Jordan, and drones set ships ablaze in Egypt.

While the incidents span different countries, they are tied to the same conflict. Iran backs armed groups across the region and uses them to project power beyond its borders, while the US has thousands of troops in allied Arab countries that have come under Iranian retaliation.

The centre of the latest fighting is the Strait of Hormuz, a passage between Iran and Oman that carried a fifth of the world's traded oil and gas before the war. Iran says it controls the waterway and has attacked ships using an alternative route overseen by the US military along the coast of Oman. The US has struck Iran in response, saying the strait should be open to international traffic, as it was before the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.

When the US strikes Iran, Iran has responded by firing missiles and drones at Arab countries hosting US forces, including Jordan and Kuwait. The exchanges in recent weeks have led to the collapse of an interim agreement aimed at winding down the war, deepening mistrust on both sides. At this stage, Iran appears more focused on strengthening its control over the strait than on reaching a deal with the US to lift international sanctions.

In Yemen, the Iran-backed Houthis, who stayed out of the initial phase of the war, have declared a blockade on Saudi Arabia. They have threatened shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb strait and the Red Sea route leading to Egypt's Suez Canal. The Houthis also say they attacked Saudi oil infrastructure near an East-West pipeline that Saudi Arabia has used to move millions of barrels of oil since the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed.

The Houthi-Saudi tensions come from a separate but related conflict stretching back more than a decade, and that front now appears to be heating up again. Maritime security firm Ambrey said more than 10 transits in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden had made U-turns since the Houthis announced their naval blockade against Saudi Arabia. According to Ambrey's latest data, Bab al-Mandeb transits have fallen 30 per cent since July 21 compared with June.

Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia accused Iran-backed militias in Iraq of carrying out drone attacks on its oil facilities on two consecutive days. In response, US and Saudi fighter aircraft bombed militia sites in Iraq, killing at least 20 fighters and six Iranian advisers. Iraq, which has close ties with both the US and Iran, condemned the strikes and said they came while it was trying to investigate what had happened.

The Popular Mobilisation Forces, a group of armed factions close to Iran, are officially part of Iraq's security forces but often act on their own, including by attacking US troops in Iraq. American forces are due to complete their withdrawal from Iraq at the end of September, and the Iraqi government has promised to disarm non-state actors or absorb them into the military. Those efforts, however, could stall as the wider war continues. The remaining US troops are in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, which also hosts armed Iranian Kurdish dissident groups, both of which Iran has attacked during the war.

On Wednesday, a drone attack on Egypt's Mediterranean port of Damietta set two natural gas vessels on fire, including a US-owned floating storage facility. No group has claimed the attack, and the Houthis have denied responsibility. Egypt, a close US ally and regional mediator, is one of the few countries in the Middle East that has avoided direct military involvement in the war.

Israel, which joined the initial weekslong bombardment of Iran and was repeatedly targeted by Iranian missiles earlier in the conflict, has remained on the sidelines since the interim peace deal. Soon after the war began, the Iran-backed Hezbollah group fired rockets into northern Israel, drawing Israeli air strikes and a ground invasion. Since then, Israel has occupied, depopulated and destroyed large parts of southern Lebanon, saying the measures are needed to root out militants.

A truce reached on June 20 has largely held. Israel and the Lebanese government are now carrying out the first steps of an agreement under which Israeli forces would withdraw and Lebanon's army would move in. The deal also says Hezbollah must be disarmed, a condition the group has rejected, and it could resist any attempt to force that move. With tensions rising across several fronts, any attack involving Iran, Hezbollah or Israel could reopen another theatre in the wider conflict.

With PTI Inputs

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