Middle East conflict widens as Houthis hit Israel, US prepares for possible ground war

The risk of an expanded Iran war grew as Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis on Saturday launched their first attacks on Israel since the start of the conflict, as additional US forces reached the Middle East.

Washington has dispatched thousands of Marines to the Middle East in the month-old war. The first of two contingents arrived on Friday on an amphibious assault ship, the US military said on Saturday.

The Washington Post reported on Saturday that US officials said the Pentagon was preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran, possibly involving raids by Special Operations and conventional infantry troops. Whether President Donald Trump would approve plans for deploying ground troops remained uncertain, the Post reported.

Reuters has reported that the Pentagon was considering military operations that could include deploying ground troops in Iran.

The war, launched on February 28 with US and Israeli strikes on Iran, has spread across the Middle East, killing thousands and hitting the world economy with the biggest-ever disruption to global energy supplies.

Read: FM Dar urges dialogue, diplomacy in call with Araghchi ahead of ‘indepth’ Islamabad talks on Iran war

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday the US could achieve its aims without ground troops, but that it was deploying some to the region so Trump would have “maximum” flexibility to adjust strategy.

The Pentagon was also expected to deploy thousands of soldiers from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.

Iran’s IRGC says it will target Israeli or US-affiliated universities in the region in retaliation for the attacks on Iranian universities. They said, “The US has until 12 on Monday, March 30, Tehran time, to condemn the bombing of Iranian universities; otherwise, Israeli and American universities in West Asia will be targeted.” They warned students, staff, and nearby residents to stay at least one kilometre away from these universities.

One of Iran’s oldest universities, the University of Science and Technology, was bombed by US-Israeli forces on Saturday. The extent of casualties remains unclear.

Iranian media said at least five people were killed in a US-Israeli attack on a residential unit in the northwestern city of Zanjan.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, who hosts talks from Sunday with the Turkish, Egyptian and Saudi foreign ministers on ways to ease regional tensions.

Israel carried out a wave of attacks on Tehran on Saturday, targeting what Israel’s military said was Iranian government infrastructure.

Read More: Iran FM warns Israel of ‘heavy price’ after attacks on steel factories, power plant, nuclear sites

It also hit targets in Lebanon, resuming its war against Iran-backed Hezbollah, killing three Lebanese journalists in a strike on a media vehicle, Lebanon’s Al Manar TV reported, as well as a Lebanese soldier. A follow‑up strike on the rescue workers sent to assist them also caused fatalities.

Israel’s military said it had targeted one of the journalists, accusing him of being part of a Hezbollah intelligence unit and saying he had reported on locations of Israeli soldiers.

Iran kept up attacks on Israel and several Gulf states after hitting an air base in Saudi Arabia on Friday and wounding 12 US military personnel, two of them seriously, in one of the most serious breaches of US air defences so far.

Air defences shot down a drone near the residence of the leader of the Iraqi Kurdish ruling party, Masoud Barzani, in Erbil, security sources told Reuters early on Sunday. Security sources said on Saturday that another drone attack had targeted the home of the president of Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

Israel, which regularly faced missile attacks from the Houthis before the war, confirmed a missile had been fired at it from Yemen. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

The attack pointed to a potential new threat to global shipping, already hit by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, previously a conduit for about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.

The group carried out a second strike on Israel, said Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree, vowing more strikes to come.

The Houthis have shown an ability to strike targets far beyond Yemen and disrupt shipping lanes around the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea, as they did in support of Hamas in the Gaza war.

With the US midterm elections due in November, the increasingly unpopular war has weighed on Trump’s Republican Party. He has appeared eager to end it soon, while also threatening escalation.

Demonstrators took to city streets across the US on Saturday in anti-Trump rallies described by organisers as a call to action against the war on Iran.

Trump has threatened to hit Iranian power stations and other energy infrastructure if Iran does not open the Strait of Hormuz. But he extended a deadline he had imposed for this week, giving Iran another 10 days to respond.

Iranian threats to attack ships in the strait have kept most oil tankers from attempting the waterway. Iran has agreed to let an additional 20 Pakistani-flagged vessels pass through the strait, with two ships permitted to transit daily, said Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar.

Also Read: UN chief warns Iran war ‘out of control,’ world staring down barrel of wider conflict

Israel has targeted Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. The head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom, which has evacuated staff from the Bushehr nuclear power plant on the Gulf coast, said the attacks threatened nuclear safety.

Pezeshkian said Iran would “retaliate strongly if our infrastructure or economic centres are targeted”.

Iranian attacks were reported in multiple areas across the Gulf, including Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

An Iranian airstrike hit the Israeli village of Eshtaol, near Jerusalem. Seven people were hospitalised, Israel’s ambulance service said. Aluminium Bahrain said its facilities were targeted in an Iranian attack on Saturday, Bahrain’s state news agency reported.