After new U.S. strikes hitting Yemen, Iran issues a warning about suspected spy ships in the Mideast

Iran issued a warning to the U.S. over potentially targeting two cargo ships in West Asia

Iran issued a warning on Sunday to the U.S. over potentially targeting two cargo ships in West Asia long suspected of serving as forwarding operating base for Iranian commandos, just after America and the United Kingdom launched a massive airstrike campaign against Yemen's Houthi rebels.

The statement from Iran on the Behshad and Saviz ships appeared to signal Tehran's growing unease over the U.S. strikes in recent days in Iraq, Syria and Yemen targeting militias backed by the Islamic Republic.

Those attacks, themselves a retaliatory campaign for the killing of three U.S. soldiers and wounding of dozens of others in Jordan, all stem back to Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has escalated tensions across the wider Middle East and raised fears about a regional conflict breaking out.

The Yemen strikes overnight on Sunday struck across six provinces of Yemen held by the Houthi rebels, including in Sanaa, the capital. The Houthis gave no assessment of the damage but the U.S. described hitting underground missile arsenals, launch sites and helicopters used by the rebels.

“These attacks will not discourage Yemeni forces and the nation from maintaining their support for Palestinians in the face of the Zionist occupation and crimes,” Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said. “The aggressors’ airstrikes will not go unanswered.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned the Houthis after the strikes that “they will continue to bear further consequences if they do not end their illegal attacks on international shipping and naval vessels.” That message was echoed by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who said: “The Houthi attacks must stop.”

The Behshad and Saviz are registered as commercial cargo ships with a Tehran-based company the U.S. Treasury has sanctioned as a front for the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines. The Saviz, then later the Behshad, have loitered for years in the Red Sea off Yemen, suspected of serving as spy positions for Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.