By Vaughn Cockayne and Tom Howell Jr. (The Washington Times)
The Iran war expanded Thursday as Egypt confirmed that an unidentified drone caused a fire at the Mediterranean port of Damietta, while the U.S. continued striking military and intelligence targets in Iran.
Egyptian officials said a preliminary investigation identified a drone attack as the primary cause of Wednesday’s fire. Authorities refrained from naming any party responsible for the attack.
Reports indicate that the drones targeted a Singapore-flagged liquefied natural gas vessel docked at the port of Damietta, with fire spreading to a second nearby vessel.
The attack was the first on Egyptian soil since the start of the Iran war in late February and underscored how quickly the conflict expanded since fighting resumed earlier this month.
Iran has targeted several Arab countries in the region with drones and missiles over the past five months, openly justifying this by saying those countries host U.S. military facilities. However, it has not claimed responsibility for the Wednesday attack, and Egypt has no U.S. bases on its soil.
The north Egyptian port city of Damietta is about 40 miles west of Port Said, at the northern end of the Suez Canal on the Mediterranean.
The expansion of the war to Egypt adds further speculation about the safety of the Red Sea and its two choke points: the Suez Canal in the north, controlled by Egypt, and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in the south, controlled by Yemen.
On July 20, the Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group that controls much of northwestern Yemen, declared a blockade on Saudi-linked ships transiting the Red Sea. Saudi vessels have routinely used the Bab al-Mandeb Strait to transport oil since Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed in March.
Since the blockade went into effect, traffic has decreased rapidly, and Houthi authorities have claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on tankers in regional waters. Saudi Arabia has responded by launching strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen but has not broken the blockade.
The threat of impassable Red Sea choke points drove Saudi Arabia to launch a joint security coalition.
The Saudi Defense Ministry said officials from 43 nations attended Thursday’s meeting in Riyadh, with 14 countries — led by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan — signing a joint declaration endorsing the naval coalition.
It remained unclear how the coalition would operate, or whether any of the countries that voiced support for the initiative would commit military resources to guide ships through the contested waterways.
Blocking both Red Sea exits alongside the standstill in the Strait of Hormuz threatens to push oil prices higher. Prices have climbed significantly over the past month, now at about $89 a barrel, up from around $72 on July 1.
The initiative marks a sharper turn toward direct Saudi military involvement in the U.S. war with Iran.
This week, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia launched joint strikes against Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq, which the Pentagon said were responsible for three days of strikes on Saudi oil infrastructure.
The strikes were in retaliation for Iranian strikes on a U.S. military base in Jordan the previous day. U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said all missiles and drones fired during the attack had been intercepted, adding that the base suffered no casualties or damage.
However, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Thursday that the strikes killed several U.S. military personnel and destroyed three F-35 fighter jets, an unverified claim that directly contradicts CENTCOM’s account.
CENTCOM completed another round of attacks on Iranian military infrastructure overnight, attempting to “further diminish threats posed by Iran and its proxies to American forces, commercial shipping, and neighboring Gulf countries,” according to a statement posted on social media.
The U.S. strikes and Iran’s counterattacks follow days of relative peace in the Iran war, now entering its sixth month. President Trump last week ordered a temporary pause on the large-scale bombing of Iran that had lasted for 13 consecutive days.
Those strikes followed an extended period of quiet under the now-defunct Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, which established a ceasefire. The agreement disintegrated earlier this month after what U.S. officials have categorized as clear ceasefire violations by Iran.
Mr. Trump’s decision to relaunch the war with Iran, including resuming a large-scale naval blockade of the country’s ports, is broadly out of step with American public opinion, according to polling.
An AP-NORC poll released this week found only 33% of Americans thought the war was worth fighting, while 64% did not. Pollsters said 96% of Democrats strongly disapprove of Mr. Trump’s handling of Iran, while 61% of Republicans approve — a decrease from 71% in June.
Mr. Trump has rejected criticism of his decision to go to war with Iran, saying the Islamist regime has been a global bully for nearly half a century and the world could not entertain the possibility that it might get a nuclear weapon.
He maintains that short-term economic pain is worth preventing Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
The American public is split about what the U.S. government should do next.
Nearly a quarter, or 23%, think the U.S. should continue military action, while another 23% say it should stop attacking, the pollsters said.
Three in 10 say the U.S. should pause military action and seek a ceasefire through negotiations, while 24% say they have no opinion.
This article was made available to WMAL via The Washington Times.
