Hamas‘s Oct. 7 terrorist attack in southern Israel — which left roughly 1,200 people dead — provided Iran with a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the Middle East,” according to the head of U.S. Central Command.
Tehran has spent decades supporting and training proxy forces across the Middle East, all of whom have been operationalized within the past six months. Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” includes Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen. They have all carried out attacks against either United States or Israeli forces since Oct. 7.
The Hamas terrorist attack “not only permanently changed Israel and Gaza,” Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla told senators on the Armed Services Committee on Thursday. “It created the conditions for malign actors to sow instability throughout the region and beyond.”
The CENTCOM commander acknowledged his opinion that Iran is “not paying the cost” for the work of its proxies.
The Houthis have carried out more than fifty missile and drone attacks against commercial vessels transiting the waterways off Yemen’s coasts. They carried out a missile strike on Wednesday that hit the M/V. True Confidence, a Barbados-flagged, Liberian-owned bulk carrier in the Gulf of Aden. Three people on the ship were killed in the attack, while four more were injured, three of whom are in critical condition.
The deaths mark the first time since the Houthis began these attacks in November that one of their strikes killed crew members on a targeted vessel.
The Houthis “are fighting with the most advanced weapons that Iran has,” Kurilla added. “We’re basically fighting the Iranian weapons through the hands of the Houthis.”
U.S. military personnel have carried out multiple iterations of strikes, some of which were conducted jointly with the United Kingdom, against Houthi targets to degrade their capabilities, but the attacks continue. CENTCOM forces have frequently intercepted or targeted soon-to-be-launched missiles aimed at commercial vessels.
U.S. forces have also carried out two maritime interdictions of weapons this year heading from Iran intended for Yemen, for the Houthis
The Iranian-supported militias in Iraq and Syria carried out roughly 175 rocket, missile, and drone attacks against U.S. forces in those countries and Jordan. There has not been one of these attacks since early February.
Three U.S. service members were killed in one of these attacks that hit Tower 22, a small military outpost in northeast Jordan. The U.S. military subsequently carried out a multi-pronged response over the course of multiple days that included hitting more than 85 targets using more than 125 precision munitions at seven facilities. They later carried out a targeted strike that killed the leader of one of the militias.
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“I would tell you Iran is undeterred in support to the Houthis,” Kurilla added. “They are undeterred in their support [for] Hezbollah, their support to Hamas, the support to the West Bank. They are deterred right now in Iraq and Syria and their support to the Iranian-aligned militia groups, in terms of attacks, but not necessarily in terms of their funding and equipping.”
He acknowledged that there have been “several incidents” where drones targeting the U.S. in Iraq or Syria would have injured or killed U.S. service members had the UAVs not “hit another object, got caught in a netting, or other incidents.”
