President Donald Trump threatened "major military punishment" for Iran after its Houthi proxies struck two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea on Thursday, opening a second maritime front in a conflict that's already strangled shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The attacks mark the first time the Yemeni militia has successfully extended Iran's naval blockade strategy to the Red Sea's Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint, threatening a shipping lane that carries millions of barrels of Saudi crude diverted from the now-closed Hormuz route.
"If they do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves," Trump wrote on social media. He told Axios he was considering re-launching major combat operations in Iran and was close to a decision. "They haven't received enough pain yet," he said.
The Expanding Naval Threat
The Houthis, who control northern and western Yemen, announced they're imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia. Their forces carried out missile and drone strikes on the Saudi tankers Encelia and Layla near the port of Jizan in the Red Sea just north of Yemen. A maritime security source confirmed the Encelia sent a distress call after being struck by a missile on Wednesday. Saudi state news agency SPA said the strike caused a fire at the bow. Reuters couldn't immediately confirm the attack on the Layla.
The dual-front strategy reveals Iran's broader campaign to weaponize global energy supply chains. Saudi Arabia had been using Red Sea export terminals to bypass Iran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, moving millions of barrels daily by pipeline. The Houthi strikes eliminate that workaround, leaving Riyadh with only the lengthy Mediterranean route via Suez as an alternative.
Fears that disruption could widen sent global oil prices surging in one of the steepest rises of the war. Brent crude rose more than 6%, piercing $100 a barrel for the first time since May. Daily vessel transits of the Strait of Hormuz remained at just three for each of the past three days, according to shiptracking data from analytics firm Kpler. That's down from normal traffic of dozens of tankers daily before the conflict entered its fifth month.
Thirteenth Night of U.S. Strikes
The U.S. military completed its 13th consecutive night of strikes on Iran late Thursday, targeting military command centers, drone storage facilities, communication networks, coastal surveillance sites and maritime capabilities. The strikes lasted more than two hours, according to U.S. Central Command, which said they aimed "to further diminish the threat Iran poses to civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz."
Four people were killed and five injured in a U.S. missile attack on the Iranian city of Ahvaz, state broadcaster IRIB said. Iranian state media reported missiles struck Qeshm Island on the Strait of Hormuz on both Thursday and Friday nights.
Iran retaliated by attacking U.S. positions in Jordan and Kuwait. Jordan's army said it engaged four Iranian missiles and six drones in the past day, intercepting all but one missile, which fell in an uninhabited area. Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they struck a U.S. electronic warfare unit at Al-Adiri base in Kuwait in response to an overnight strike on Iran's Shalamcheh border crossing with Iraq. Neither the United States nor Kuwait has reported casualties at the base.
Iranian military spokesperson Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia said Iran would keep retaliating as long as the U.S. continued to attack its infrastructure and coastal areas.
The Asset Seizure Threat
Trump said on social media that "any and all damages done" to cargo ships would be paid for with "Iranian Money," referring to frozen Iranian assets held by the United States, though he didn't say how such a mechanism would work. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arachi responded on X, calling asset seizure "an incendiary precedent." He added Friday, "No one's assets were safe once governments normalised such confiscation," and said, "Ensuing chaos will not be pretty or peaceful."
Shipping Disruption Deepens
At the Bab el-Mandeb strait, commodity vessel transits totaled 32 on July 23, up from 26 the day before, Kpler data showed. Of Thursday's crossings, 14 vessels were going into the Red Sea and 18 were exiting into the Gulf of Aden. Nine of the exiting ships were carrying crude oil, including two loaded Chinese supertankers bound for China.
The clean tanker Torm Innovation, loaded with around 500,000 barrels of naphtha bound for Asia, made a slight turn for the Suez Canal exit instead of a typical Bab el-Mandeb exit. Rerouting ships via the Suez Canal to Asia instead of via Bab el-Mandeb could make the voyage last nearly three times as long, regional trade sources said. Saudi Aramco has started offering additional crude cargoes loading at Egypt's Mediterranean port of Sidi Kerir as a workaround from loading at its Red Sea ports.
Why This Matters:
The Houthi attacks on Saudi tankers demonstrate Iran's ability to project naval power across multiple chokepoints simultaneously, threatening roughly 30% of global seaborne oil trade. With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed and the Red Sea now under attack, energy markets face a supply crisis that could trigger a global recession. Trump's threat to seize Iranian assets to compensate shipping companies marks an escalation in economic warfare that could destabilize international finance if other nations follow suit. Iran's retaliation against U.S. bases in Jordan and Kuwait shows Tehran won't back down despite 13 consecutive nights of American strikes. The conflict has entered its fifth month with no diplomatic off-ramp visible, and the expanding geography of the fighting — from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea to Jordanian airspace — suggests the war could widen further before any resolution emerges. Saudi Arabia's scramble to reroute oil exports through Egypt reveals how vulnerable even America's wealthiest allies have become to Iran's proxy network.