Hormuz was just the beginning: Iran's mysterious Bab el-Mandeb hint triggers panic in Arab capitals?

Iran is moving from veiled threats to open hints that it could expand its maritime pressure campaign beyond the Strait of Hormuz to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial gateway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. After boasting that it can sustain a years-long “chokehold” on Hormuz to disrupt sea-borne logistics to U.S. bases and drive up global oil, LNG, fertilizer and shipping costs, a senior Iranian security official now frames this blockade as Tehran’s main strategic leverage against Washington and its allies. Against this backdrop, Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf has triggered fresh alarm with a cryptic message asking what share of global oil, LNG, wheat, rice and fertilizer flows through Bab el-Mandeb, and which countries and companies rely most on that route, signaling that Iran is studying how to weaponise a second energy corridor. Watch for more