On Wednesday last week, Iran’s proxy army in Yemen did something which must be regarded as a serious escalation of the now four-year-old war in the devastated country and which could trigger a much larger conflict involving the United States and Iran.
The Iranian-backed Ansar Allah militia (Houthis) attacked two oil-laden super tankers belonging to Saudi Arabia in the strategically important waterway Bab al-Mandeb, with Iranian C-801 or C-802 land-to-ship missiles hitting only one of the vessels near the waterline.
A statement by state-owned oil company Aramco made clear that the two super tankers carried two million barrels of oil each and that the hit caused only “minimal damage,” while no oil was spilled in the sea.
The brazen attack led to a halt of Saudi oil shipments through the twenty-kilometer-wide shipping lane where an estimated 4.8 million barrels of oil pass daily.
Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih made it clear that the suspension of the crude shipments would last “until the situation becomes clearer and maritime transit through Bab al-Mandeb is safe.”
The announcement immediately led to a rise of oil prices on global markets with some media predicting further disruption of oil shipments via the Bab al-Mandeb strait or the Strait of Hormuz, as Iran has recently threatened to do. This could spike oil prices “to catastrophic levels”.
