Tensions Peak at Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb, Key Oil Shipping Routes

[Financial News]  

Tensions have soared to their highest level as armed clashes intensified on the 8th (local time) around the Strait of Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, two of the world's key oil shipping routes.
Amid concerns over supply disruptions, international oil prices continued to rise and were nearing the $100-per-barrel mark.
The U.S. military attacked a tanker near Kharg Island, a hub for Iran's oil exports, while Iran claimed it had seized the U.S. military's latest unmanned submarine and shot down an MQ-1 drone.
In the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, which serves as a gateway to the Suez Canal, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, backed by Iran, and Saudi Arabia engaged in fierce fighting approaching an all-out war.
Experts expressed concern that the oil market would now begin preparing for full-scale supply disruptions.

According to Reuters, AFP and other news agencies, the Houthi rebels launched extensive drone and missile attacks on four cities in southern Saudi Arabia—Khamis Mushait, Abha, Najran and Jizan. Saudi air bases, as well as key refineries and power facilities operated by state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco, were also damaged. Satellite images captured thick black smoke rising from the Jizan refinery and the Abha oil distribution center.
Saudi Arabia said the attacks had caused at least 73 casualties, calling them the largest-scale strikes targeting the Saudi mainland since the war with Iran began on February 28. The Saudi-led coalition carried out retaliatory airstrikes on eastern Sana'a, Yemen's capital, and the Taiz region, both controlled by the rebels.
AFP reported, citing sources on both sides, that at least 500 people had been killed over the past week in fighting over control of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

Clashes between the United States and Iran also intensified in the Gulf waters and the Strait of Hormuz.
According to Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency and Tasnim News Agency, a small Iranian tanker was hit by a U.S. missile attack in waters near Kharg Island, which handles most of Iran's crude oil exports. Several explosions were also heard around Kharg Island and Jask in southern Iran.
Iran claimed that it had seized the U.S. military's latest unmanned submarine and shot down a drone.
According to Iran's state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) and Sefa News, the naval forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seized a Dive-LD unmanned stealth submarine made by U.S. company Anduril Industries at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. An IRGC spokesman mockingly called the submarine the “Dawn Hunter,” poking fun at the U.S. military's fondness for naming operations “Dawn.” The remark suggested that the stealth submarine had failed to evade Iran's multilayered surveillance network.
Al Jazeera, citing Iran's state broadcaster IRIB, reported that the IRGC Aerospace Force had shot down a General Atomics MQ-1 Predator drone over the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military's mainstay is now the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, while the U.S. Air Force is known to have officially retired the MQ-1 in 2018.

[email protected] Song Kyung-jae Reporter