Tehran saw its leverage slipping away — and expanded the battlefield to attack the United States and its allies from a different angle. That’s the takeaway from this week’s fighting in Yemen, as Iran-aligned Houthi terrorists took aim at Saudi Arabia’s critical oil infrastructure and shipping routes. When the US military proved it could escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that leads to the Indian Ocean, the regime was in a bind. It lost its ability to choke off the exports of its Gulf neighbors, while remaining unable to export its own oil due to the ongoing US blockade. Without revenue from its oil sales, an Iranian financial crisis is imminent — so the regime, through its terror proxies, seeks to open a new front in the energy war. So far it has succeeded. For the last several months Riyadh has relied on its East-West pipeline to export over 4 million barrels a day — roughly 4% of global oil supply — via northern and southern routes out of the Red Sea. But last week Iraqi militias — likely operating with Houthi coordination, under the guidance of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps advisers — attacked the pipeline itself, choking off that export option. The damage could take a month or more to repair, intensifying economic pressure on the US and its allies. The Houthis — an Islamist rebel group that has sought to oust Yemen’s internationally recognized government since the early 2000s — profess a slightly different strain of radical Shiite Islam than their patrons in Tehran. But their slogan is almost identical: “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews, and victory to Islam.” At the same time as the pipeline attack, Houthi militias marched down Yemen’s Red Sea coast and seized Bab al-Mandeb, the waterway’s southern chokepoint, from Yemeni government forces. By holding the territory along the Red Sea’s narrow entrance and the island inside it, the Houthis can effectively control transits through the key waterway. The Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said, “Maritime navigation is safe for all companies except for Saudi vessels.” But Iran and the Houthis are unlikely to remain so benevolent for long, now that Tehran has successfully turned the conflict with the United States into a war over energy markets. Oil prices have already climbed in response: AAA reported that the national average gas price this week reached its highest point since June, hitting $4.32 on Tuesday. But the Houthis have goals of their own beyond Iran’s wartime aims: They want to rule Yemen as its official government. And Saudi Arabia, as the primary backer of the Republic of Yemen, is the key hurdle to their domestic ambitions. The terror group hopes that pressure on Riyadh — exerted through attacks on the kingdom and its energy infrastructure, and Houthi control of the Red Sea — will force them into a deal. That’s a dangerous prospect, for Riyadh, for Washington and for the world. Instead, the United States must commit to supporting Saudi Arabia in driving the Houthis back from their strategic positions on the Red Sea coast. The Treasury Department can target the Houthis’ financial lifelines by sanctioning exchange houses, financial institutions and front companies — particularly in Oman — that facilitate transactions on behalf of the group. Furthermore, Treasury should identify and block Houthi crypto wallets, an increasingly important resource for its war machine. And Washington needs to seriously consider increasing its operational support of Riyadh, including potential US airstrikes, in the effort to free southern Yemen from this terrorist group. It makes little sense to continue striking Iran while granting immunity to one of its key proxies. In the days after the Houthi advance, President Donald Trump said that its leaders had asked Washington not to intervene, on the grounds that their grievance is against only one country — by implication, Saudi Arabia. But the Houthis, like the regime in Tehran, consider themselves to be engaged in a perpetual war against the United States. Trump seems loath to end the cease-fire that began in 2025, after his administration conducted a seven-week bombing campaign against the Houthis. Since then, the Houthis have not targeted American ships to avoid incurring damaging airstrikes. But ultimately, the Iranian threat to the Red Sea will persist as long as the Houthis occupy the coast. Anything short of their removal is just a half-measure that buys time for Houthi terrorists to dig in further. Bridget Toomey, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, focuses on Iranian proxies, specifically Iraqi militias and the Houthis.
Tehran saw its leverage slipping away — and expanded the battlefield to attack the United States and its allies from a different angle. That’s the takeaway from this week’s fighting in Yemen, as Iran-aligned Houthi terrorists took aim at Saudi Arabia’s critical oil infrastructure…
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A Saudi-led coalition has accused Yemen's Houthis of attempting to target Mecca with a drone, a claim the Iran-backed group has denied as "false." The incident escalates a broader regional conflict in which the Houthis have recently seized control of Yemen's Red Sea coast and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, while the coalition has vowed retaliatory measures to protect holy sites.
Amazon Says Cloud Infrastructure In Bahrain, UAE 'Beyond Saving'
Via The Cradle
Amazon Web Services (AWS) says it cannot restore access to its cloud-computing facility in Bahrain or one of three data-hosting zones in the UAE due to the extensive damage caused by Iranian retaliatory strikes, Reuters reported on 15 September.
"The damage to our infrastructure spanned multiple Availability Zones and exceeded what our regional and multi-AZ services are designed to withstand," AWS reported in its status update seen by Reuters. via Stars & Stripes
In the UAE, resources and data held exclusively within one zone, labeled mec1-az2, have been damaged beyond hope of recovery, the company said, as engineers are still salvaging what they can from the two other battered zones and across the wider Emirati region.
An availability zone refers to a cluster of one or more data centers sitting inside the same geographic region, the structure AWS relies on to keep services running when a single site goes down.
The outages trace back to March, when the US and Israel attacked Iran, and Tehran responded with missile and drone salvos against Israel and Gulf states hosting US military bases.
AWS confirmed at the time that two of its UAE facilities took direct hits, while a drone strike near one of its Bahraini sites left the infrastructure there destroyed.
Most Bahrain-based customers shifted their workloads elsewhere on AWS advice before the region went dark in April, but the company says it has now exhausted every option for recovering whatever was left behind.
The losses have called into question the resilience of the Gulf's fast-expanding cloud and AI infrastructure. The UAE is already redrawing plans to war-proof a major AI data center project, weighing decentralized site building alongside underground and blast-resistant construction, and even equipping the data center itself with anti-air defenses.
Israel and the US have long ago transformed AI infrastructure into a weapon of war deployed extensively across West Asian theaters.
Cloud platforms, data centers, and high-capacity computing systems now help store intelligence, process intercepted communications, analyze surveillance, and support military operations across West Asia, extensively so in Gaza and Iran.
Iran maintains that data centers operated by US technology companies are not simply civilian facilities, but strategic assets supporting US and Israeli aggression, thereby making them legitimate targets for retaliation.
AI has become a central instrument of US and Israeli warfare across West Asia, embedded in how targets are chosen, tracked, and struck.
Israel has weaponized AI platforms including automated targeting systems like The Gospel, Lavender, and Where’s Daddy? to harvest mass data, autonomously generate kill lists, and orchestrate systematic airstrikes and assassinations against Palestinians.
Backed by corporate infrastructure like Microsoft Azure, which stored massive caches of intercepted Palestinian communications, the Israeli military has deployed AI-driven drone surveillance to track and assassinate Palestinians. Iran Destroyed An Amazon Data Center In Bahrain
The US has run algorithmic warfare systems such as Palantir's Maven to process satellite, drone, and radar intelligence, using machine learning to speed the production of targeting recommendations against Iranian forces.
More than 1,000 targets were designated within the first 24 hours of the war on Iran, one of which resulted in the massacre of at least 150 people, including at least 120 schoolchildren at the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab.
Tyler Durden Tue, 09/15/2026 - 22:35
U.S. officials stated that the Trump administration is considering a $2.8 billion arms package that would include 40,000 2,000-pound bombs, a category of weapons previously withheld by the Biden administration due to concerns over civilian casualties in Gaza.
The proposed deal, which has not yet been finalized but was informally disclosed to Congress, reportedly includes 20,000 Mk84s and 20,000 BLU-117s to be purchased largely through foreign military financing.
Republican Representative Thomas Massie introduced a privileged resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which would mandate a House vote within 48 hours. Massie alleged that Hegseth violated war powers regarding operations in Iran and the Caribbean, a move that has been described as a first for a lawmaker seeking to impeach a Cabinet member from their own party, potentially influenced by a recent primary election dispute.
Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson responded by asserting that the Department of Defense remains unified and is functioning effectively under the current administration.