US, Saudi forces strike Iran-backed groups in Iraq as Gulf tensions escalate

DUBAI/CAIRO: The United States and Saudi Arabia carried out a joint military strike against Iran-aligned armed factions in Iraq on Wednesday, marking Washington’s first military action in the Middle East since President Donald Trump halted the bombing campaign against Iran the previous week.

Iran responded by turning down an Omani-brokered plan for joint regional oversight of the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran also confirmed it had fired at vessels passing through the strait and struck American military installations in Jordan.

The fresh outbreak of hostilities, combined with the collapse of diplomatic efforts, sent oil prices climbing for the first time in over a week signalling that the conflict, which began in February when the US and Israel launched their campaign, shows no sign of winding down soon.

Footage aired by Iraq’s Al-Ahad television showed mourners in Mosul carrying the bodies of dead fighters from a hospital, with crowds chanting Shia religious slogans alongside anti-American chants.

According to US and Saudi officials, the joint strike on the Iran-backed factions was carried out in response to earlier drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities that had been launched from Iraqi territory.

Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, powerful Iran-backed paramilitary groups incorporated into the formal Iraqi security forces, said at least 20 members were killed and 32 wounded in U.S.-Saudi strikes targeting several bases across Iraq.

It was the first major U.S. military action in the Middle East since last Friday, when Trump abruptly suspended an intensive bombing campaign after 13 days, having been advised by commanders that the strategy had run its course.

It was also the first time during the war that Saudi Arabia had publicly declared its participation in joint strikes alongside the United States. The joint strikes potentially widen the conflict by drawing Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia into combat against Shi’ite proxies of Iran on a new front.

Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government, one of the few in the world to maintain close military and diplomatic ties with both Tehran and Washington, called an emergency meeting.

Washington has long called on the Baghdad government to crack down on Iran-backed paramilitaries, but efforts to do so in the past have provoked domestic unrest.

The deep ties between Iran and Iraq, the two biggest Shi’ite-majority countries, have been on display this week as hundreds of thousands of Iranian religious pilgrims visit shrines in Iraq for an annual holiday, crossing the border over land. Some carried portraits of Iran’s slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, revered as a high-ranking cleric in both countries.

Saudi Arabia has also been drawn into the conflict on another front, with the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen announcing a blockade of Saudi oil exports in the Red Sea last week and firing on ships and oil facilities.

Hours before launching the joint attacks with Saudi Arabia on Iraq, the U.S. military said its air defences had averted a surprise Iranian attack on U.S. troops in the region.

Jordan’s military said its air defences had intercepted and shot down five Iranian missiles. Three of the four U.S. service members killed this month were killed in Jordan, where U.S. bases have become primary Iranian targets.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had fired several ballistic missiles at U.S. military installations in Jordan, and had struck three tankers that were attempting to transit through the Strait of Hormuz along an unauthorised route.

Tehran rejects Omani proposal

Fighting had first resumed this month after a U.S.-Iran deal reached 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 where it aims to collect fees.

Oman proposed a plan for joint regional control of the strait this week, with the backing of Gulf states, that would allow the payment of voluntary service charges. But a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday that Iran had rejected the Omani proposal as “unreasonable”.

The official said a 50-50 joint control arrangement with Oman would not serve Iran’s interests, though Tehran considers Oman a valuable neighbour. Iran wants sole control over the inbound route and partial control over the outbound route.

The United States has been telling ships to use a route near the Omani shore rather than sailing close to Iran. The Revolutionary Guards Navy said in a statement it continued to maintain full control over the strait and would respond to “unlawful U.S. military interference”.

The renewed fighting sent oil prices rising 4.6%, with Brent crude futures trading at almost USD88 a barrel at 1030 GMT. The price, which had briefly spiked above USD100 last week for the first time since May, had tumbled into the mid-80s this week after it emerged over the weekend that Trump had called off the bombing.