Iran ‘directly involved’ in rebel’s ship attacks, US Navy chief says

JERUSALEM — Iran is “very directly involved” in ship attacks that Yemen’s Houthi rebels have carried out during Israel’s war against Hamas, the U.S. Navy’s top Mideast commander told The Associated Press on Monday.

Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the Navy’s 5th Fleet, stopped short of saying Tehran directed individual attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

However, Cooper acknowledged attacks associated with Iran have expanded from previously threatening just the Persian Gulf and its Strait of Hormuz into waters across the wider Middle East.

“Clearly, the Houthi actions, probably in terms of their attacks on merchant shipping, are the most significant that we’ve seen in two generations,” he told the AP in a telephone interview. “The facts simply are that they’re attacking the international community; thus, the international response I think you’ve seen.”

Iran’s mission to the United Nations and the Houthi leadership in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, didn’t respond to a request for comment. However, the Houthis later claimed to have attacked a U.S.-flagged vessel, something that the 5th Fleet dismissed as “patently false.”

Since November, the Iranian-backed Houthis have launched at least 34 attacks on shipping through the waterways leading up to Egypt’s Suez Canal.

The Houthis, a Shiite rebel group that’s held Sanaa since 2014 and been at war with a Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s exiled government since 2015, link their attacks to the Israel-Hamas war. However, the ships they’ve targeted increasingly have tenuous links to Israel — or none at all.

In recent days, the U.S. has launched airstrikes on Houthi military sites, targeting air bases under the rebels’ control and suspected missile launch sites.

However, risks for the global economy remain as many ships continue to bypass that route for a longer trip around Africa’s southern tip. That meant lower revenue for Egypt through the Suez Canal, a vital source of hard currency for the country’s troubled economy, as well as higher costs for shipping that could push up global inflation.

As Cooper took command of the 5th Fleet in 2021, the threat to shipping focused primarily around the Persian Gulf and its narrow mouth, the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all oil traded passes. A series of attacks blamed on Iran and ship seizures by Tehran followed the collapse of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.