Iran adviser warns war could spread to Indian Ocean — SkimNews
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Yahya Rahim Safavi, adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, warned Thursday (Sept 24, 2026) that if the U.S. attacks again the "West Asia war" will expand to the Indian Ocean and "perhaps beyond," noting the conflict has already spread from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea.
- It is the first time a Supreme Leader adviser explicitly named the Indian Ocean, home to the strategic U.S.-British military base at Diego Garcia nearly 4,000 km from Iran.
- Yemen's Houthis, who receive Iranian military support though Tehran denies involvement in Yemen, have seized the Red Sea coastline and tightened control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait—the chokepoint linking Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal.
- Iran has locked down the Strait of Hormuz off its coast in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli strikes that triggered the war at the end of February; the two countries now vie for control of a waterway that once carried much of the world's oil and gas.
- U.S. and Iranian officials held talks this week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, with Iran's conditions including the lifting of sanctions and unconditional release of its frozen overseas assets.
- Hossein Mohebi, spokesman for Iran's Revolutionary Guards, told AFP on Tuesday (Sept 22, 2026) that ending the Yemen war is also part of Tehran's demands.
Why it matters: Iran just put a third global chokepoint on the table: Hormuz is already locked, the Bab al-Mandab is under Houthi pressure, and now the Indian Ocean—within striking distance of Diego Garcia—is named as the next escalation lever. That sequence gives Tehran negotiating weight in the New York talks, where it is explicitly conditioning an end to the war on sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets.
Ask SkimNews
