{"id":566511,"date":"2026-07-30T07:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T07:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/566511\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T07:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T07:36:11","slug":"us-strikes-iran-as-widening-war-between-houthis-saudi-engulfs-more-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/566511\/","title":{"rendered":"US strikes Iran as widening war between Houthis, Saudi engulfs more countries"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest strikes in Iraq and Egypt threatened to draw more Middle Eastern countries into the conflict, after the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen last week declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, a drone hit a US-owned gas storage tanker<\/a> at Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta, British maritime security firm Ambrey said in an initial assessment, while US and Saudi forces launched strikes against Iran-aligned groups in eastern Iraq and Iran fired missiles at US troops in Jordan.<\/p>\n

The drone was reportedly launched from Iran<\/a>, the\u00a0New York Times reported on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In first, Saudi Arabia publicly joins strikes alongside US<\/p>\n

The joint US-Saudi attacks marked the first time Riyadh has publicly joined strikes alongside Washington.<\/p>\n

Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, powerful Iran-backed paramilitary groups incorporated into the Iraqi security forces, said at least 20 members were killed and 32 wounded in US-Saudi strikes targeting several bases across Iraq.<\/p>\n

Iraqi men shouted “Death to America!” as they carried the bodies of slain fighters in body bags.<\/p>\n

Washington and Riyadh said they struck Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq in retaliation for drone attacks on Saudi oil targets launched from Iraq.<\/p>\n

\"AA US military aircraft takes off from an unknown location during what US Central Command (CENTCOM) says are strikes on Iran, in this screengrab from a handout video released on July 29, 2026. (credit: US CENTRAL COMMAND\/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)<\/p>\n

After the joint attacks, Saudi Arabia’s defense minister met with Vice President JD Vance in Washington on Wednesday to urge the Trump administration not to escalate the conflict further by attacking Yemen’s Houthis and carrying out additional strikes against the Iran-aligned militias in Iraq, two sources told Reuters.<\/p>\n

One of the sources added that such escalation would open the door to “major unknown risks.” The White House and Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Major combat operations against Iran would carry risk, officials warn\u00a0<\/p>\n

US officials have privately cautioned that resuming major combat operations against Iran would carry risk given the negative impact on stocks of munitions.<\/p>\n

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, estimated this week that the US military has fewer than 1,000 Patriot interceptor missiles and fewer than 250 THAAD interceptors – two key air defense systems.<\/p>\n

Though Iran denies its forces have directed strikes from Iraqi territory, Iranian newspaper Hamshahri reported that four Iranian Revolutionary Guards<\/a> advisers had been killed in the strikes on Iraq.<\/p>\n

Who are Iraq’s Iranian-backed armed groups?<\/p>\n

The strikes on Iraq expose a dangerous rift in that volatile country. The Shi’ite-led government is one of the few in the world to balance close military and diplomatic ties with both Tehran and Washington, but those divided loyalties are a constant source of tension and frequent domestic unrest.<\/p>\n

The office of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who took power just two months ago, urged the parties involved to avoid escalation and said he wanted to keep the country out of regional conflicts.<\/p>\n

The Iraqi presidency denounced the strikes on the paramilitaries as “an unacceptable attack and a flagrant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty,” while also calling for a halt to attacks by armed groups against Iraq’s neighbors.<\/p>\n

The deep ties between Iran and Iraq, the two biggest Shi’ite-majority countries, are on display this week as hundreds of thousands of Iranian religious pilgrims head to shrines in Iraq for an annual observance of mourning for martyrs.<\/p>\n

US strikes Iran as widening war engulfs more countries<\/p>\n

Hours before launching the attacks on Iraq, the US military said its air defenses had averted a surprise Iranian attack on US troops in the region.<\/p>\n

“US forces began launching strikes against Iran at 8:00 p.m. ET today (0000 GMT),” US Central Command said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“The strikes are a powerful response to yesterday’s attempted Iranian attacks on US forces based in the Middle East.”<\/p>\n

Jordan’s military said it had shot down five Iranian missiles. US bases in Jordan<\/a> have lately become primary Iranian targets, where three US service members were killed this month in the worst US losses since March.<\/p>\n

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had fired several ballistic missiles at US military installations in Jordan, and had struck three tankers that were attempting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz along an unauthorized route.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The latest strikes in Iraq and Egypt threatened to draw more Middle Eastern countries into the conflict, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,2895,8954,87,6605,47,43,78,40,38,41,39,2893],"class_list":["post-566511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-houthi","tag-houthis","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}