Report: Iran Is Sending IRGC Troops Into Yemen & Israel's Election Battle

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**Mike Baker** (0:41)
It's Thursday, the 23rd of July. Welcome to The President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, there are growing signs that Iran is taking a more direct role in the Houthi campaign against Red Sea shipping, with new reports saying that the Iranian regime has been flying Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel into Yemen. I'll have the details.
Later in the show, the political battle for Israel's future is taking shape as a decorated former general mounts a serious challenge to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Plus, Nicolás Maduro, remember him? Well, he's one step closer to standing trial in New York on federal drug trafficking charges. And in today's Back of the Brief, for the first time in more than four decades, Americans will once again be able to fly directly from the US to Lebanon. Now for the unaware, Lebanon is a beautiful country, although obviously it may not become a tourist hotspot just in the near future.
But first, today's PDB spotlight. The Iran-backed Khutii rebels appear to be transitioning from threatening commercial shipping in the Red Sea to preparing to attack it. According to a new warning from the Joint Maritime Information Center, and you ask yourself, is there an acronym for that? Well, there is, and it's JMIC, a US Navy-led maritime security organization, headquartered in Bahrain, the Khutis have completed preparations to begin enforcing the maritime blockade that they announced against Saudi Arabia earlier this week. Now the group says it's positioned missiles and attack drones near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. That's the narrow waterway connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. The warning, citing sources close to the Khutis, says those forces are now in place and ready to target shipping. If you've been listening to the PDB this week, you know that the Khutis have declared a maritime embargo targeting Saudi Arabia. Specifically, they've warned that any vessel loading or unloading cargo at Saudi ports could be considered a legitimate target. At least for now, they're not threatening every commercial ship passing through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, only those connected to the Saudis.
But Wednesday's reporting suggests that the blockade is no longer just a declaration. The Khutis now appear to have positioned the military hardware needed to begin enforcing it. European officials are taking the threat seriously. The European Union's naval mission in the region issued its own warning on Wednesday, advising merchant vessels linked to Israeli, American or Saudi interests to avoid transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden until the threat level decreases.
Interestingly, there have still been no confirmed attacks over the past two days. Commercial shipping continues to move through the Bab al-Mandeb, and Jamek still assesses the overall threat level as moderate. But as you might imagine, the markets are already reacting. According to ship-tracking firm Kapler, commercial traffic through the Bab al-Mandeb fell roughly 34% after the Khutis announced their blockade. Maritime intelligence firm Windward reports that four tankers carrying roughly 3.8 million barrels of Saudi crude oil, gas oil and naphtha turned around before reaching the strait. That's yet another reminder that maritime warfare doesn't always require kinetic strikes. Sometimes the threat alone is enough. If ship owners, insurers and captains believe the risk has become too great, vessels simply change course. We obviously know that from the Strait of Hormuz. And as Iran continues harassing shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, Riyadh has relied more heavily on its east-west pipeline, moving crew to cross the kingdom to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, before exporting its south through the Baal al-Mandeb. In June alone, exports from Yanbu surged to roughly 3.5 million barrels per day. That's compared to just 240,000 barrels per day during the same period last year. In other words, as the Strait of Hormuz has become more dangerous, the Red Sea has become far more important.
But there was another development today that may help explain why the Houthis suddenly appear ready to enforce the blockade. Speaking from Manila in the Philippines, Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Iran of flying members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, into Yemen. Rubio said Tehran has sent IRG personnel to Yemen, prompting a military response from Saudi Arabia. He did not provide specifics or evidence supporting the allegation. But the reality is the Houthis have been an important ally of the Iranian regime for quite some time, and there is little to no doubt that the IRGC personnel have been in Yemen providing support to their proxy.