Major Gulf Fighting Restarts As U.S. And Saudi Strike Iran’s Allies In Iraq

DUBAI/CAIRO, July 29 (Reuters) – The United States launched its first airstrike in the Middle East on Wednesday since suspending its bombing campaign last week, striking Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq along with Saudi Arabia. Tehran, on the other hand, rejected Oman’s plan to manage the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran said it had opened fire on ships in the strait and US bases in Jordan, and oil prices rose again as renewed clashes and diplomatic failures suggested the war the US and Israel launched in February would not end immediately.

Washington and Riyadh said they jointly struck Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq in retaliation for drone attacks on Saudi oil targets.

The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, powerful Iran-backed paramilitary groups that are included in Iraq’s official security forces, said at least 20 people were killed and 32 injured in US-Saudi Arabian attacks targeting various bases in Iraq.

It was the first major U.S. military operation in the Middle East since last Friday, when President Donald Trump abruptly suspended a massive bombing campaign after 13 days after commanders reported that the strategy had achieved its goal.

Joint attacks could potentially widen the conflict by drawing Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia into fighting on a new front against Iran’s Shiite proxies. During the war, Saudi Arabia publicly announced for the first time that it was participating in joint attacks with the United States.

Iraq’s Shiite-led government, one of the few governments in the world that maintains close military and diplomatic ties with both Iran and the United States, called for an emergency meeting. Washington has long called on Baghdad’s government to crack down on Iran-backed paramilitary forces, but past efforts to do so have led to unrest within the country.

Saudi Arabia was drawn into the conflict on another front after the Iran-backed Houthi movement in Yemen announced last week that it was blockading Saudi oil exports in the Red Sea and opened fire on ships and oil facilities. Hours before launching a joint attack on Iraq with Saudi Arabia, the US military said its air defenses had prevented a surprise Iranian attack on US troops in the region.

Jordan’s military said its air defenses intercepted and shot down five Iranian missiles. Three of the four US soldiers killed this month were killed in Jordan, where US bases have become Iran’s primary targets.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said they fired several ballistic missiles at US military facilities in Jordan and hit three tankers trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz via an unauthorized route.

The clashes resumed this month for the first time after an agreement reached between the United States and Iran in June on a framework to end the war collapsed over the fate of the strait, the world’s most important energy shipping route, which Iran says it controls and aims to collect fees from.

Oman this week, with the support of Gulf countries, proposed a plan for joint territorial control of the strait that would allow voluntary service fees to be paid. But a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday that Iran had rejected Oman’s offer as “unreasonable”.

The official said a 50-50 joint control arrangement with Oman would not serve Iran’s interests, but Tehran sees Oman as a valued neighbor. Iran wants sole control on the route coming from the strait and partial control on the outgoing route.

The US is telling ships to use a route close to the Omani coast instead of sailing close to Iran. The Revolutionary Guard Navy said in a statement that it continues to maintain full control over the strait and will respond to “illegal US military intervention.”

The renewed fighting caused oil prices to rise more than $3 per barrel; This marked the first jump since last week, with Brent crude futures trading above $87 again. The price, which briefly rose above $100 last week for the first time since May, fell to the mid-80s this week after it was revealed over the weekend that Trump canceled the bombing.

(Reporting by Timour Azhari, Parisa Hafezi, Doina Chiacu, Ahmed Tolba, Kanishka Singh and Reuters bureaus; Writing by Peter Graff, editing by Andrei Khalip)