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
