Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Yemen threaten new attacks as US aircraft carrier approaches

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Two Iranian-backed militias in the Mideast are signaling their willingness to launch new attacks, likely trying to back Iran, which is concerned about an approaching U.S. aircraft carrier after President Donald Trump threatened military action over its crackdown on nationwide protests.

Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on Monday hinted they were ready to resume attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. That came just after Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah paramilitary group, long supported by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, issued a direct threat late Sunday toward any attack targeting Iran, warning a "total war" in the region would be a result.

However, both the Houthis and Kataib Hezbollah sat out from Israel's 12-day war on Iran in June that saw the United States bomb Iranian nuclear sites. The hesitancy to get involved shows the disarray still affecting Iran's self-described "Axis of Resistance" after facing attacks from Israel during its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

A short video by the Houthis included images of a ship on fire, with the caption: "Soon." It later aired footage Monday from its January 2024 attack in the Gulf of Aden on the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker Marlin Luanda, one of the over 100 ships attacked as part of a campaign the Houthis said pressured Israel over its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Houthis halted their fire after a ceasefire in the conflict, though they've repeatedly warned they could resume fire if needed.

Meanwhile, Ahmad "Abu Hussein" al-Hamidawi of Kataib Hezbollah issued his own threat in a statement.

"We affirm to the enemies that the war on the (Islamic) Republic will not be a picnic; rather, you will taste the bitterest forms of death, and nothing will remain of you in our region," he said.

The threats came as the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other guided missile destroyers with it move toward the region. Trump has said the ships are being moved "just in case" he decides to take action against Iran. Trump already has laid out two red lines for attack - the killing of peaceful protesters and Tehran conducting mass executions of those it has arrested in a massive crackdown over the demonstrations.

The "Axis of Resistance" alliances had allowed Iran to project its power across the Mideast but also was seen as a defensive buffer, intended to keep conflict away from Iranian borders. But it has collapsed after Israel targeted Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon and others during the Gaza war. Meanwhile, rebels in 2024 overthrew Syria's Bashar Assad after a yearslong, bloody war in which Iran backed his rule.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, also warned Iraq late Sunday about Iran's influence.

"A government controlled by Iran cannot successfully put Iraq's own interests first, keep Iraq out of regional conflicts or advance the mutually beneficial partnership between the United States and Iraq," a statement on Rubio's behalf read.

The United Arab Emirates announced on Monday that it would not allow its airspace, territory or territorial waters to be used for military action against Iran. The UAE said it would stress dialogue and diplomatic resolutions.

The Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said Monday that it's preparing for a possible attack by Israel and the U.S., but demurred on the question of whether it would intervene if Iran were struck.

During last year's Israel-Iran war, Hezbollah remained on the sidelines, badly weakened by its own war with Israel in 2024. Israel has alleged that it is rebuilding.

"During the past two months, several parties have asked me a clear and frank question: If Israel and America go to war against Iran, will Hezbollah intervene or not?" Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Kassem said via a video address to thousands of supporters gathered for a rally in support of Iran in Beirut's southern suburbs.

He said the group is preparing for "possible aggression and is determined to defend" against it. But as to how it would act, he said, "these details will be determined by the battle and we will determine them according to the interests that are present."

Iranian Defense Ministry spokesperson Gen. Reza Talaei-Nik renewed warnings Monday to both Israel and the U.S. over any possible attack, saying it would "be met with a response that is more painful and more decisive than in the past." Iranian state television quoted Talaei-Nik as saying that threats from the two countries required Iran "to maintain full and comprehensive preparedness."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei separately told journalists: "Regional countries fully know that any security breach in the region will not affect Iran only. The lack of security is contagious."

Iran over the weekend unveiled a new banner in Tehran's Enghelab Square threatening the Lincoln, showing an aircraft carrier strewn with bodies and streaked with blood with the warning: "If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind." However, Iran is still reeling from the 12-day war in June that saw its air defense systems broadly destroyed and top military leaders killed, as well as its nuclear enrichment sites bombed by the U.S.

As a sign of concern over its airspace, Iran issued a notice to pilots Sunday that banned small private aircraft from flying in the country, with carve-outs for the oil industry and emergency medical flights.

Many Western airlines have started to avoid Iranian airspace entirely due to the tensions, though Gulf Arab carriers flying to Moscow still rely on the route. Iranian air defense troops in 2020 shot down a Ukrainian commercial airliner, killing 176 people on board.

The protests in Iran began on Dec. 28, sparked by the fall of the Iranian currency, the rial, and quickly spread across the country. They were met by a violent crackdown by Iran's theocracy, the scale of which is only starting to become clear as the country has faced more than two-week internet blackout - the most comprehensive in the nation's history.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency on Monday put the death toll at 5,973, with the number expected to increase. It says more than 41,800 people have been arrested.

The group's figures have been accurate in previous unrest and rely on a network of activists in Iran to verify deaths. That death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest there in decades, and recalls the chaos surrounding Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Associated Press has not been able to independently verify the toll.

Iran's government has put the death toll at a far lower 3,117, saying 2,427 were civilians and security forces, and labeled the rest "terrorists." In the past, Iran's theocracy has undercounted or not reported fatalities from unrest.