Strikes continue as Houthis join Iran war, US troops arrive

Attacks in the Middle East conflict extended into a fifth week Sunday, with Israel striking Tehran and Saudi Arabia intercepting almost a dozen drones, a day after Yemen-based Houthi militants entered the war.

The strikes came as 3,500 additional U.S. troops arrived in the Middle East and regional powers including Saudi Arabia and Turkey meet in Pakistan to discuss how to end the conflict, which has killed thousands and caused chaos in commodity markets and global trade.

The Iran-backed Houthis launched ballistic missiles at Israel on Saturday morning, following U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Tehran also struck aluminum producers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, along with a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia, wounding a dozen American personnel.

The Washington Post reported that the U.S. defense department was preparing for potentially weeks of ground operations in Iran, citing unidentified U.S. officials. Any mission would likely first target opening the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway through which a fifth of seaborne global oil flowed before the war but which has now slowed to a trickle, inflicting the biggest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told the semi-official Tasnim news agency “our men are waiting for American soldiers to enter on the ground.”

The strait has emerged as Iran’s main source of leverage in the war, and Pakistan on Saturday said it had reached a deal with Tehran to allow 20 of its ships passage. Bahrain on Sunday announced a ban on fishing and pleasure boats at night, citing the Iranian threat. Saudi Arabia has managed to reroute some of its oil around the strait, with its East-West pipeline now operating at its full capacity of 7 million barrels a day, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The Houthis could complicate that — the Red Sea port of Yanbu, through which 5 million barrels of Saudi exports are now flowing, is well within their missile range. The group said they would continue operations until U.S.-Israeli attacks on the Islamic Republic and its proxy militant groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, cease.

While the Houthis didn’t say they would target tankers or other vessels transiting the southern Red Sea and the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, they effectively shut the waterway to most Western shippers after the war in Gaza began in 2023.

For now, the Houthis are likely to avoid targeting Saudi oil sites, New York-based political consultancy Eurasia Group said in a note to clients. The Islamist militants agreed to a truce with Saudi Arabia in 2022, which has largely held.

Iran launched what it said were retaliatory strikes on Gulf Arab states and Israel after U.S.-Israeli attacks on its nuclear facilities and steel plants on Friday. Meanwhile, in a sign of the conflict’s long reach, French anti-terrorism authorities are investigating a foiled bombing near the Bank of America Corp. headquarters in Paris that they said appeared to be linked to the Middle East conflict.

Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA reported extensive damage to residential areas in Tehran overnight, with early reports of civilian injuries. The semi-official Fars news agency said five people were killed and two boats were hit in early Sunday attacks on a port in the southern Hormozgan province. In the city of Shaft, near the Caspian Sea, one person was killed in strikes on a residential area.

The UAE on Saturday reported fires at its Kezad industrial site in Abu Dhabi, following ballistic missile interceptions that wounded at least six people. The country said it had dealt with 37 drones and 20 ballistic missiles on Saturday. UAE senior advisor to the president Anwar Gargash said on X on Sunday that any political solution to the war must include security guarantees and Iranian reparations.

A strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on Friday left at least 15 U.S. troops wounded, including five seriously, and damaged several refueling aircraft, the Associated Press reported.

One of the damaged airplanes was an E-3 Sentry, according to a person familiar with the matter asking not to be identified discussing sensitive military operations. Such aircraft, which cost roughly $300 million, are equipped with airborne warning and control system radar to help track drones and missiles. Unverified photos of the jet showed its tail completely severed, rendering it unflyable.

Kuwait said its airport came under several drone attacks on Saturday, with a radar system sustaining major damage. In Oman, Salalah port was targeted by multiple drones, halting operations and injuring one person.

One person was killed in an Iranian strike on Tel Aviv, according to Israel’s emergency services. Israel’s invasion of south Lebanon, which has killed more than 1,000 and displaced more than one million people, continued over the weekend, with strikes killing two journalists on Saturday, according to Lebanon’s state-run NNA.

The U.S. military said in a social media post on Saturday that it had struck more than 11,000 targets and destroyed more than 150 Iranian vessels since the conflict began. The Israel Defense Forces said a wide-scale wave of strikes overnight targeting missile production and storage sites in Tehran had been completed.

The escalation is adding to fears the conflict will drag on. There’s still little sign that Iran and the U.S. will meet for peace talks soon, even though President Donald Trump has pushed for negotiations. He delayed his deadline to April 6 for Tehran to agree to reopen Hormuz or have its power plants demolished.

Iran rejected a 15-point proposal from Trump, which essentially offered Tehran sanctions relief in return for it dismantling nuclear facilities and reducing its missile arsenal, as well as reopening Hormuz. Iran, for its part, is insisting on war reparations, recognition of some form of control over Hormuz and pledges that the U.S. and Israel won’t attack it in the future.

The foreign ministers of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt are set to meet in Islamabad on March 29-30 to discuss efforts to deescalate the conflict. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif spoke to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian for more than an hour on Saturday as part of those mediation efforts.

Pakistan has emerged as a key mediator and has offered itself as a venue for any U.S.-Iran talks.

Oil prices continued to rise in the past few days, with traders’ optimism about a ceasefire in the near-term fading. Brent crude closed on Friday above $112 a barrel, extending the international benchmark’s advance since the start of the conflict to more than 55%.

The conflict has caused fuel shortages and led to fears of lower growth and faster inflation, or stagflation, across the global economy.

The war has left over 4,500 people dead, according to governments and non-governmental agencies. Around three-quarters of fatalities have been in Iran, while almost 1,100 people have died in Lebanon. Dozens of people have been killed in Israel and Gulf Arab states.

For all that Trump says Iran should negotiate peace, he is also saying the U.S. can continue with strikes on the Islamic Republic. On Friday, he said more than 3,500 targets remained in Iran and “that’ll be done pretty quickly.”