[Anchor]
Saudi Arabia and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels have engaged in intense, all-out clashes over the Red Sea shipping lane, which serves as Saudi Arabia's alternative oil transport route to the Strait of Hormuz. The United States has pointed to Iran as the mastermind behind the attacks and launched airstrikes on Iranian oil tankers, raising fears of expanding conflict.
Reporting from Washington, here is correspondent Lee Hanseok.
[Reporter]
The Iran-backed Houthi rebels mobilized drones and missiles to launch a surprise strike on four cities in southern Saudi Arabia.
The targets included a Saudi air force base and key oil refining and power facilities belonging to the state-run oil company Saudi Aramco.
Saudi authorities stated that 73 people were injured in the attack, and Saudi-led coalition fighter jets immediately carried out retaliatory airstrikes on the Yemeni capital of Sana'a.
Over the past week, clashes between the two sides have left more than 500 people dead and displaced approximately 18,000 refugees.
This crisis marks the worst fierce battle yet over control of the Red Sea shipping lane—Saudi Arabia's oil export lifeline—following the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
As tensions in the Middle East reached a boiling point, global energy markets experienced massive turbulence, with Brent crude nearing 100 dollars per barrel.
The U.S. administration pointed the finger at Iran for the incident, ramping up pressure to its peak by slapping massive sanctions on 36 targets, including 27 Iranian commercial airlines.
[Trump / U.S. President: Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.]
The U.S. military also resumed airstrikes.
The U.S. Central Command announced that it sank a total of five tankers: four Iranian tankers in the Gulf of Oman and one near Kharg Island, Iran's oil export terminal.
It made clear that the move was in retaliation for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps twice attacking a U.S. Navy warship with ballistic missiles over the previous two days.
Iran also launched a counterattack.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that it had seized an advanced U.S. Navy unmanned underwater vehicle in the Strait of Hormuz and warned that it would soon release related footage.
Qatar, acting as a mediator, urgently reached out to the international community, including China, to break the deadlock in the-end-of-war negotiations between the United States and Iran.
However, with the sparks of an all-out war spreading across the entire Middle East, these efforts appear overmatched in tearing down the deep wall of distrust between Washington and Tehran.
(Video by Park Eunha | Video editing by Cho Muhwan)
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