Iran threatens to expand war to Indian Ocean: What to know
Iran threatens to expand war to Indian Ocean: What to know
An adviser to Iran's supreme leader has threatened to open a new front in the Indian Ocean if the US resumes its strikes against Iran.
An adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei warned on Thursday that any further attacks by the United States and Israel against Iran could expand the war into the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait, possibly reaching as far as the Indian Ocean.
What happened: “If the Americans start a new war, a new front centered on the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait may open before their eyes,” Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, who serves as a military adviser to Khamenei, said in remarks carried by the official Fars news agency.
“With the conflict now extending from the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to the Red Sea, it is possible that this scope could widen — in response to a potential war — to the Indian Ocean, or perhaps even further,” he warned.
During the US-Israeli war on Iran that erupted on Feb. 28, Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel and other countries that host US military assets, including Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Tehran's attacks resumed after the US military resumed its strikes against Iran in early September.
The Houthi rebels, Iran’s proxy group in Yemen, escalated their drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia earlier this month. The militia accused the kingdom of carrying out airstrikes at its positions in Yemen, where fighting with Saudi-aligned government forces has been ongoing since the Houthis launched a large-scale military operation along Yemen’s Red Sea coast on Sept. 4.
While Iran has said that the Houthis act independently, Pakistan, which helped broker the June 17 memorandum of understanding between Iran and the US, conveyed a Saudi warning to Tehran to rein in its Yemeni allies, the Financial Times reported last week.
“We support the Yemenis, and the Yemenis support Iran. Iran and Yemen share the same fate when it comes to both threats and interests,” Safavi said, adding, “A threat to Yemen is also a threat to Iran."
What it means: The Houthi group has made significant territorial gains along the Yemeni Red Sea coast, advancing toward the key Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean.
The narrow passage has emerged as a critical global maritime chokepoint amid Iran’s de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz since the start of its war with the US in late February.
Iranian officials have repeatedly threatened to expand the geographic scope of the conflict if the US resumes its attacks by targeting US military assets outside the Middle East, including in Cyprus and Bulgaria.
In the early days of the Iran war in March, the US accused Tehran of launching several missiles toward Diego Garcia, a joint US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean around 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from Iran.
Tehran denied the accusations.
Know more: Iran and the United States have been exchanging warnings and sporadic exchanges of fire over the past few days amid stalled negotiations to reach a permanent end of hostilities, raising concerns that the war between the two sides will resume.
The US has been sending mixed messages, with President Donald Trump using his address at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to call for Iran’s “complete economic isolation” and threaten the country’s “annihilation” should no deal be reached.
Meanwhile, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held a three-hour meeting with members of an Iranian delegation on the sidelines of the UNGA summit that the president described as “very productive.”
Speaking to reporters in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said the talks were mediated by Qatar and the “interaction was aimed at conveying Iran’s conditions,” including releasing Iranian frozen assets and lifting the US naval blockade.
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