After the Red Sea, Iran is escalating the war and moving closer to Suez. The attack in Egypt

When, ten days ago, attacks by the Houthis – the Iran-backed Yemeni group that controls large swathes of the country – threatened shipping in the Bab el Mandeb Strait, at the southern end of the Red Sea, fears grew that, following the blockade of Hormuz, a similar conflict might erupt at another strategic point for regional maritime traffic. According to estimates, the number of vessels passing through the Bab el Mandeb Strait has already fallen by around a fifth. That was until Wednesday, when an attack on the port of Damietta, an Egyptian city in the Nile Delta, extended the war to the nearby Suez Canal. Damietta is a major hub for oil tankers and container ships in the eastern Mediterranean, and the attack was the first on Egyptian territory since the start of the war. Since the early days of July, following the end of the ceasefire between the United States and Iran, the regime in Tehran and its proxies have opened new fronts and reopened old ones: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait.  

On Wednesday, a drone attack caused a fire on two tankers – one of which was an American-owned natural gas storage tanker – in the Egyptian port of Damietta, threatening maritime traffic in the Mediterranean, which had hitherto been regarded as an alternative and safe route, far from the conflict. Now, not even the infrastructure along the Egyptian coast can be considered safe from possible future attacks. The Egyptian authorities stated yesterday that they will take “the necessary measures to protect Egypt’s interests and national security”.

Since the start of the war with Iran, in order to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia has redirected its oil exports westwards, towards the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea. In response to the Saudi attack on Sana’a airport in Yemen on 13 July, the Houthi rebel group – which had so far remained on the sidelines of the war – declared a blockade on Saudi oil shipments in the Red Sea and launched missiles and drones against several Saudi oil tankers. This week, the Houthis also attacked Riyadh from Iraqi territory, in coordination with pro-Iranian armed militias. Saudi Arabia’s participation in the US attacks over the last few days has also marked the opening of a new front: the kingdom had, from the outset, avoided taking an open side in the conflict.

Iran has also stepped up its drone attacks in the Iraqi Kurdistan region: on 24 July, it attacked the city of Erbil in northern Iraq. Saudi Arabia has accused Iranian-backed militias in Iraq of striking its oil facilities and, on Wednesday, joined forces with the United States to attack pro-Shia militias closely linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, striking seven paramilitary bases. The Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) stated that at least twenty fighters had been killed, whilst the Pasdaran reported the deaths of four of their members who were serving as military advisers to the militias.

On 17 July, an Iranian missile attack on the Muwaffaq Salti airbase in the eastern desert, which houses US troops in Jordan, killed three American servicemen. A week later, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched several ballistic missiles at the same base: US Central Command described it as an “attempted surprise attack”; the missiles were all intercepted. The US military responded the following day with a “strong response to Iranian attempts to attack US forces stationed in the Middle East”. Yesterday, the Jordanian army stated that its air defences had shot down five missiles launched from Iran.

Yesterday, Tehran claimed responsibility for an attack on the US military base at Ali al Salem in Kuwait, in response to the US attack on the Iranian island of Qeshm. The Kuwaiti army subsequently announced that an Iranian attack on a building had resulted in the death of a worker and caused serious damage to the structure in the north of the country.