Four flashpoints in Israel-Hamas conflict that could spark wider war in Middle East

An assassination of a Hamas leader at his home in Beirut. The worst bombings in Iran in decades. A series of brazen attacks on shipping vessels in the southern Red Sea. 

More than three months after the Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli war in Gaza, the fighting and conflict is reverberating beyond the tiny strip of land that Israelis and Palestinians have been sparring over for decades.

The bloodshed has spread across the Middle East, sparking fears it could metastasize into a wider regional conflict − with complicated implications for the U.S. and its western allies. 

"The Middle East is in the throes of unprecedented levels of tension, unparalleled in recent memory," wrote Mona Yacoubian, an expert on the region at United States Institute of Peace, in a recent commentary. 

Here are four of the biggest flashpoints unfolding in the region right now that could spark a wider and more complex Middle East war.

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Who are the Houthis, and why are they attacking ships in the Red Sea?

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, an Iranian-backed group of militants known as the Houthis have fired a cascade of missiles and drones into the Red Sea. They claim it is an act of solidarity with the Palestinians, a retaliation for Israel's military campaign in Gaza. 

One of the largest of these attacks came on Tuesday night: Houthi militants launched 18 drones and three missiles toward ships in the Red Sea. The attack was repelled by U.S. and British naval ships, but the incident raises the stakes about the role of key allies in the region. 

The Houthis are a rebel group from Yemen, supported by Israel's arch-foe Iran, who are on one side of that country's long-running civil war. The other side is backed by Saudi Arabia.

These attacks have brought maritime traffic through this key waterway − with its busy shipping lanes − to a virtual halt. They have also bought U.S. Navy ships perilously close to the line of fire. Last week, a Houthi drone exploded a few miles from U.S. Navy and commercial ships without causing casualties or damage, according to Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. And U.S. Navy helicopters also recently sank three boats piloted by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, killing the crews.

So far, the Pentagon hasn't struck at the source of attacks − Houthi arsenals and launch sites − as it has in Iraq and Syria where Iranian-backed militias have fired missiles and drones at bases with U.S. troops more than 60 times, occasionally wounding American personnel. 

The Pentagon appears reluctant to attack inside Yemen for fear of unraveling a fragile ceasefire in the country's civil war, in which thousands have died because of the fighting — and millions more have faced deprivation and famine. A Shiite movement, the Houthis have been fighting Yemen’s Sunni-majority government since 2004.

Cooper said that there are five U.S. warships patrolling the Red Sea that have fended off 61 attacks in the last few months. There are also manned and drone spy planes providing surveillance.

U.S. bases in Middle East under attack

The Houthi attacks are part of a growing list of Iranian-backed assaults across the Middle East on U.S. and western interests. They pre-date the Israel-Hamas war − but have intensified in the wake of it and threaten to further entangle the Pentagon in Israel's war in Gaza.

Over the last three months, militants groups backed by Iran in Iraq and Syria have increasing their targeting of U.S. military bases, where about 3,000 American troops and contractors are stationed. 

These attacks have injured U.S. soldiers. In October, a drone struck a U.S. base in Iraq but did not detonate, narrowly avoiding what may have resulted in major U.S. casualties, according to a report.

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The U.S. retaliated on Jan. 4. with a drone attack in Baghdad that killed Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al-Jawari, also known as Abu-Taqwa. A high ranking militia commander, Abu-Taqwa, had been actively involved in planning and carrying out attacks against American personnel, Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters. 

The strike also killed one other member of Harakat al-Nujaba, Abu-Taqwa's organization, which was designated a terrorist organization by Washington in 2019.

"By targeting a militia leader directly, the U.S. military likely hopes to restore deterrence without triggering a larger escalation," wrote Yacoubian in her commentary. 

The Hezbollah factor

The top U.S. diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, was on a swing through Turkey and the Middle East this week, including stops in Israel and the West Bank. His trip was aimed at making sure the Israel-Hamas war does not spread. 

Just as he was setting off for his trip, Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia fired dozens of rockets at northern Israel. Hezbollah said the attack was in retaliation for a presumed Israeli strike in Beirut last week that killed Saleh Arouri, a top Hamas official, and six others. And for a Monday drone strike by Israel that killed Hezbollah commander Wissam al-Tawil, a senior member of the group. 

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Hezbollah has, since the Israel-Hamas war's beginning, regularly fired on Israel's forces but it has so far stopped short of launching a major military campaign against Israel. 

Israel's military leaders have recently signaled they are running out of patience with Hezbollah and may soon launch a military offensive against the U.S.-designated terror group in Lebanon.

"We prefer the path of an agreed-upon diplomatic settlement, but we are getting close to the point where the hourglass will turn over," Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Jan. 5. 

ISIS attacks Iran. Israel gets the blame

The Islamic State terrorist group on Jan. 4 claimed responsibility for twin blasts in the Iranian city of Kerman near the burial site of revered slain Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani that killed almost 100 people. 

The attacks were the deadliest in Iran for decades. 

ISIS, a Sunni Muslim organization that opposes Iran's Shiite-majority theocratic government, has claimed responsibility for previous attacks on Iranian targets. 

But in the initial fog of uncertainty surrounding the blasts, some Iranian officials appeared to point the finger at Israel, stoking fears that the war in Gaza was expanding to a new front. 

"The war has already reached much of the Middle East,'' said Paul Salem, an expert at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, in an analysis. ''The risk is that the aperture and intensity of conflict will steadily ratchet up in the coming weeks and months unless there is sharp progress to reverse course.''

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Four flashpoints in Israel-Hamas conflict that could spark wider war