(Reuters)་་་
WASHINGTON/ATHENS, July 26 – The Iran war broadened over the weekend despite a pause in U.S. strikes, as Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis attacked Saudi oil installations along the Red Sea coast and Iran accused Ukraine of targeting one of its vessels in the Caspian Sea.
The U.S. military said on Saturday its naval blockade against Iran “remains in full effect” but did not explain why it halted a streak of 13 nights of escalating strikes.
There were also no weekend reports of attacks by Iran on neighbors, similar to its daily rejoinders to the U.S. attacks.
Asked about the pause, a senior official in President Donald Trump‘s administration said Trump “has always been clear that his preference is diplomacy, but he has shown Iran what will happen if they fail to come to the table in a serious way.”
Trump has decided, for now, to back away from plans to ramp up attacks on Iran, the New York Times said on Saturday, citing two people briefed on the discussion.
The president and his advisers, the newspaper said, have concerns about expanding the conflict, depleting defense stockpiles, alienating Middle East Gulf allies and affecting energy supplies and the global economy.
Vice President JD Vance and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both raised concerns about the U.S. munitions stockpile with Trump during a White House meeting on Friday, a U.S. official told CNN.
Operations are “on a hold,” a Department of Defense source told the broadcaster on Saturday.
Despite the Gulf lull, Saturday’s fighting between Iran’s Houthi allies and Saudi Arabia showed that the war, which has already disrupted energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, could affect a second major shipping route and reignite Yemen’s civil war.
Separately, Iran’s Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of attacking an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, saying one sailor was killed and another injured.
The ministry summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran to protest over an attack it described as “hostile and criminal”, state news agency IRNA said.
