Iran And Yemen's Houthis Blockade, Hegseth On Capitol Hill, Arizona Primary Day

**Michelle Martin** (0:02)
Iran already controls one key waterway used for oil shipping in the Middle East.

**Leila Fadel** (0:06)
Now, Yemeni rebels backed by Iran are trying to cut off another one. Will they succeed?

**Michelle Martin** (0:11)
I'm Michelle Martin, that's Leila Fadel, and this is Up First from NPR News.
Seventeen American troops have died in the Iran War. The Pentagon says 100 more were wounded in the past two weeks. Today, senators finally get to question Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as he asked them for more money to fund an unpopular war.

**Leila Fadel** (0:32)
And it's primary day in Arizona where Republican races will tell us how their voters feel about election denial. There are candidates running who tried to overturn the 2020 election results. Stay with us, we'll give you the news you need to start your day.
There's now a new element of uncertainty in the US war with Iran.

**Michelle Martin** (0:57)
For 10 days, the two sides have exchanged strikes as Iran continues to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz. Now Yemen's Iranian-backed rebels say they will blockade another waterway on the other side of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea.

**Leila Fadel** (1:09)
With me now is NPR's Emily Fang, who is in Tel Aviv to talk about this. Emily, good morning.

**Emily Feng** (1:14)
Good morning, Leila.

**Leila Fadel** (1:15)
So tell us more about this threat of a blockade. Where would it be?

**Emily Feng** (1:19)
So it would be in this waterway called the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. It connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and ultimately the Indian Ocean on one end.
And on the other, the Suez Canal, all the way up to the Mediterranean Sea. And this strait lets Saudi Arabia, which is one of the biggest oil producers in the world, now get millions of barrels of oil a day out to the open ocean for export. And it needs this strait, especially because another waterway, the Strait of Hormuz, has been effectively closed by the US-Iran War. So any Houthi blockade would rattle energy markets even more and raise energy prices even higher. Wow.

**Leila Fadel** (1:53)
Just remind people, Emily, or people who don't pay close attention to this, who the Houthis are.

**Emily Feng** (1:58)
They are a Yemeni Shiite militant group. They're aligned with the militant group Hamas. They're supportive of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the regime in Iran. And you may remember them from when they were attacking ships in the Red Sea and snarling up logistics lines there. Yemen is where Saudi Arabia had intervened in the civil war against the Houthis. But then this month, Saudi Arabia crossed a four-year ceasefire with the Houthis by firing missiles at a major airport in Yemen's capital. Saudi Arabia has not acknowledged these strikes, but this week, a Houthi spokesperson declared a blockade. Let's listen to his video statement.
So here he says the blockade on Saudi ships was a siege for a siege, basically retaliation, an eye for an eye.
Any Houthi blockade, if successful, is going to test Gulf state unity against the Houthis, against Iran, and it's going to further test energy supply chains. Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries around it have been exploring pipeline projects so they can ferry oil over land instead of by water. But Leila, those pipelines will take years to build.

**Leila Fadel** (3:04)
And what about Iran? What's the latest from there?

**Emily Feng** (3:07)
USNCOM said they struck Iran overnight, again in a 10th round of consecutive attacks. Iran has been pounding countries which host American military bases and infrastructure as a result, especially Bahrain and Kuwait, but also Jordan, where at least two American service members were killed last Friday. A third is still missing. So in total, that brings us to at least 17 service members who have been killed so far in this war. The Pentagon says 427 people have been injured. Iran's government says 3,000 people there had been killed in this war.
But amongst all this death and destruction, there are still some efforts at diplomacy. Iran's foreign minister said on state television this week ending a war is possible through total military victory or through negotiations. And it's also said that it's received offers of diplomacy but has not specified exactly what those are. And then US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US has also received some signals Iran wants to negotiate, but he's noted a split in Iran's ruling echelon between those who want to keep fighting and those who want diplomacy.

**Marco Rubio** (4:08)
They'll have to work out that split internally. We're going to continue to respond. If the door opens to diplomacy, if the guys that want to do something productive for Iran win and take control of that system or take control of the negotiations, that'll be a very positive development.