Saudi Official Suspends Oil Shipments Via Red Sea

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Saudi Energy Minister Khaled Faleh says the state-owned Saudi oil giant Aramco was temporarily stopping oil shipments through the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV. The action follows reports that two giant Saudi oil tankers had been targeted by Yemen's Houthi militia near the Red Sea port of Hodeida.

The TV channel reported that Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates may suspend oil shipments through the Red Sea, as well. The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Mohammad Ali Jaafari, claimed Wednesday that Iran "is able to stop world oil shipments, at will," but it was not clear that the attacks were related to those remarks. Other Iranian leaders have threatened recently to "close the Strait of Hormuz," another strategic waterway leading out of the Persian Gulf.

Asharq al-awsat newspaper reported that one of the Saudi oil tankers said to have been attacked in the Red Sea Wednesday was lightly damaged, while the other was not hit. The United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, tweeted Thursday that the attacks "confirm the importance of removing (Yemen's Iranian-backed) Houthis from (the Red Sea port city) of Hodeida."

The newspaper quoted Saudi-led coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki as saying that the two attacks underscore "the dangerous threat to international shipping and commerce through the (strategic) Bab al-Mandab (strait)," as well as the "ecological threat," of oil spills. Both Saudi Arabia and its junior coalition partner, the United Arab Emirates, have been trying to push the Houthis out of Hodeida militarily.