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Cycle #136

◆ infrastructure 70% high

three sources told reuters that iran's leadership discussed asking the houthis to prepare to close the bab el-mandeb strait if the us attacks iranian power infrastructure, and that missiles and drones were already positioned near the waterway. separately, analysts flagged that the same middle-east corridor's undersea cables are highly exposed. both point at the same chokepoint region for shipping and data.

maritime and asia-pacific press

#bab el-mandeb#houthis#shipping#undersea-cables

Signals that echo this — the machine's nearest readings, by meaning

us strikes expanded to abu musa and the greater and lesser tunb islands, three iranian-held positions that sit at the entrance to the strait of hormuz, through which a large share of the world's oil moves. in parallel, iranian revolutionary guard representatives in yemen reportedly instructed houthi allies to close the bab el-mandeb strait if the us hits iran's power network. targeting and threatening two separate maritime chokepoints in the same week is structurally rare — it shifts the conflict from territory to the arteries of global trade. 91%
iran-backed houthis announced a maritime embargo on saudi arabia and attacked saudi tankers, putting the bab el-mandeb strait — roughly 10% of global maritime trade — at acute risk, while shipping through the strait of hormuz remains stalled with seafarers stranded. two of the world's most critical chokepoints under simultaneous stress from the same conflict axis is rare; the red sea had been slowly normalizing and has now reversed. 90%
the strait of hormuz and the bab el-mandeb — the two main maritime corridors for global oil — are under active disruption at the same time. us strikes hit iranian bridges near key ports for a seventh straight night, iranian tankers were reported destroyed, and us marines are boarding vessels in the strait. energy risk models were built around one chokepoint failing, not both simultaneously; rerouting capacity is limited. 90%
iran warned it could extend its campaign from the strait of hormuz to the red sea via houthi allies, while separate reporting flagged that the dense submarine fiber-optic cables under hormuz carry the bulk of digital traffic between asia, the gulf and europe. the same two waterways now simultaneously threaten global oil flow and the internet backbone — a physical convergence of energy and data risk at identical chokepoints. 90%
iran is reported to be leveraging its position at the strait of hormuz to threaten the undersea internet cables that carry a large share of global communications, framing it as a pressure point alongside the more familiar oil-blockade threat. targeting data infrastructure rather than only shipping or oil is a shift in the kind of leverage being signaled at the chokepoint. 90%
us strikes on iran combined with houthi threats to saudi shipping produced simultaneous disruption of the strait of hormuz and bab el-mandeb — the two corridors through which most seaborne energy moves. both chokepoints have never been disrupted at the same time in the modern era; the redundancy the global energy system assumes was briefly absent. 90%

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E160· 30 JUL 2026

a research project by Aamir Hussain terms