By Athena Papakosta

US President Joe Biden has made it clear that the US crackdown on Yemen’s pro-Iranian Houthi rebels will continue, however, making it clear that US and British raids have yet to stop Yemeni rebel attacks on ships in Eritrea Sea.

US forces launched strikes against rebels near Tehran for the fourth time in a week as the tension that started in Gaza now spreads across the Middle East, reaching as far as the Iran-Pakistan border.

Despite the American strikes – which together with the British have hit more than 60 targets in Yemen – the Houthis appear to be defying Washington by again striking a US merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden with a series of anti-ship missiles.

In fact, their leader, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, underlined that “we will continue to target ships connected to Israel | noting that now the attacks, after the strikes by the international naval coalition, “will also include American and British ships”. He emphasized that the blows of the United States and the United Kingdom do not scare them.

The tension in the Middle East is escalating with the foci of tension multiplying but connecting with each other.

Hours after Baghdad renewed calls for the US-led coalition to withdraw from Iraq, air defense systems shot down an armed drone over the Erbil airport near which Washington forces are stationed. Three 24 hours earlier, the Revolutionary Guards had launched a barrage of rockets against Erbil.

“The problem is and the international community must face it unequivocally – without a yes, but – that there is an evil empire emanating from Tehran,” stressed the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, from Davos at the moment after the cross-border attacks on Iran and Pakistan is now developing a diplomatic… war.

Iran called for an explanation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan’s charge d’affaires in Tehran, condemning the Pakistani strikes on its territory, while it was preceded by Pakistan’s decision to recall its ambassador from Tehran and not allow the Iranian ambassador who had visited the his country, to return to Islamabad.

For its part, the United States is closely monitoring the development of the data, remaining vigilant and underlining that it does not wish for escalation. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby explained that Pakistan was “hit first” calling the event “a new dangerous attack, a new example of Iran’s destabilizing role in the region” making it clear that the United States would not like to see “a nuclear-armed Iran.”

At the same time, the Tehran-backed “axis of resistance” under the umbrella of which Yemen’s Houthis and Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah are included have hinted that their actions will cease when the war Israel- Hamas in the Gaza Strip with the ultimate goal of American troops leaving the area.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that the war would continue until “total victory” while he lashed out at the United States, which insists that peace in the Middle East will come with a two-state solution, stressing that “in any future agreement, Israel needs security control over the entire area west of the Jordan River. This is against the idea of ​​a Palestinian government.”