Iraqi and Yemeni armed groups aligned with Iran have threatened to target U.S. interests with missiles and drones if Washington intervenes to support Israel in its conflict with Hamas in Gaza that already shows signs of expanding to further fronts.
The comments come amid strong support by the United States for Israel’s response to the attacks and a U.S. pledge to rapidly provide additional munitions to Israel and deploy a carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean.
In Yemen, the leader of the Houthi Movement warned on Tuesday that the group would respond to any U.S. intervention in Gaza with drones, missiles, and other military options.
Abdul Malik al-Houthi said the group was ready to coordinate intervention with other members of the so-called “Axis of Resistance” which encompasses Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim factions in Iraq and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, which has already entered the fray, according to the Reuters news agency.
He stated that “the Yemeni people are thus ready to do everything they can to perform the sacred duty of standing with the Palestinian people,” adding that “our people are ready to move in the hundreds of thousands to join the Palestinian people and confront the enemy.”
Yemen’s Houthi movement has battled a Saudi-led coalition since 2015 in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands, during which it has targeted strategic assets in the Gulf, most notably energy facilities in Saudi Arabia. Yemen has enjoyed a year of relative calm as peace negotiations gain traction.
In Iraq, Kataib Hezbollah, an armed faction with close ties to Iran, said it would target U.S. bases with missiles, drones, and its special forces if Washington intervenes in the conflict.
U.S. officials have accused the group of previous attacks on U.S. interests in Iraq, where around 2,500 American troops are still stationed. The group has denied the claims.
Sanctions?
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Wednesday that the United States isn’t ruling out more sanctions against Iran amid the Israel–Hamas conflict that erupted over the past weekend.If Tehran is linked to the surprise Hamas attacks in Israel over the weekend that left reportedly hundreds of civilians dead, Iran would face new penalties, said Mrs. Yellen at an International Monetary Fund news conference in Morocco.
“I wouldn’t take anything off the table in terms of future possible actions, but I certainly don’t want to get ahead of where we are on that,” she told reporters, responding to a question about what the United States will do with $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil assets. The United States released those assets just last month.
Those billions of now-unfrozen assets, she added, “were made available purely for humanitarian purposes,” and they haven’t “been touched.” The money is “sitting in Qatar” at the moment, Mrs. Yellen said.
The United States is also “constantly looking at” its Iranian sanctions policy, the secretary said. Hamas and Hezbollah could also face punishment, she added, noting that the Treasury Department will act “using information that becomes available.”
“We have not in any way relaxed our sanctions on Iranian oil,” Ms. Yellen also said in the news conference. “We have sanctions on Hamas, on Hezbollah, and this is something that we have been constantly looking at and using information as it becomes available to tighten sanctions.”
However, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has stated that he hasn’t seen any evidence that Iran was “behind this particular attack” but noted that “there’s certainly a long relationship” between Iran and Hamas. Over the weekend, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei praised the Hamas assault and linked video footage of what appears to be the aftermath of a massacre of Israeli civilians on Elon Musk’s X platform.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that he believes Iran was complicit in the Hamas assault because it has long backed Hamas, a State Department-designated terrorist organization. But Sullivan told reporters that he doesn’t have information to determine whether Tehran was directly involved.
As Israeli warplanes bombed Gaza neighborhoods ahead of a potential ground offensive and a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group arrived in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Treasury secretary downplayed the potential for the conflict to batter the global economy.
“Thus far, I don’t think we’ve seen anything suggesting it would be very significant,” she said.
World Bank President Ajay Banga told a separate news conference that the conflict would complicate the global economy’s path, echoing comments in a Reuters interview on Tuesday. “I believe that wars are completely, extremely challenging for central banks who are trying to find their way through a very difficult situation, to a relatively soft landing,” Mr. Banga said.
