ISLAMABAD (AP) — The United States and Pakistan on Wednesday condemned Yemen’s Houthi rebels for threatening commercial shipping in the Red Sea after the group announced a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia earlier this week.U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio blamed Iran for the Houthi rebel group’s naval blockade against Saudi Arabia but hoped it could be de-escalated. The Houthis are armed and significantly influenced by Iran but are independent of Iran’s supreme leader, unlike the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group and several Iran-backed Iraqi militias. “Anything that restricts shipping through the Red Sea would be problematic for the same reasons that the Strait of Hormuz is problematic,” Rubio said on the sidelines of a regional summit in the Philippines. The U.S. is closely monitoring the situation, he said, and has contacted Saudi Arabia a number of times over the last week about the threats.The Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes in peacetime, has been fully or partially closed since the war in Iran started on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli attacks.
“It’s not a new threat, but it’s one that’s manifested itself in the past, but at the gist of that issue is the fact that, again, Iran is in the middle of it. Talking about the troublemaker in the region, it’s Iran,” he added.
