Iran has reportedly instructed Yemen’s Houthi terrorists to prepare to close a critical Red Sea gateway if the United States attacks Iranian power infrastructure, Reuters reported, a threat experts warn could sharply disrupt global shipping even if the group cannot completely seal the waterway.

“This threat should be taken seriously,” Nadwa Al-Dawsari of the Middle East Institute told Fox News Digital. “With recent escalation and U.S. strikes on Iran, Tehran has already signaled that the Bab al-Mandab could become part of its response.”

Three sources told Reuters on Thursday that Iran’s leadership had discussed using the Houthis to shut the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and recently conveyed the request to the group. A source close to the Houthis said missiles and drones had been deployed near the waterway and that the group was awaiting an order to begin attacking shipping.

IRAN-BACKED TERROR PROXY HOUTHIS THREATEN FRESH ATTACKS AFTER YEMEN AIRPORT STRIKE

Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British ambassador to Yemen and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warned in a recent Fox News Digital report that a full resumption of the Houthi maritime campaign could trigger wider fighting.

“It will be interesting if the Houthis do go all in, and resume their campaign against Red Sea shipping with full intensity,” Fitton-Brown said. “This will draw international anger and likely result in Israeli and U.S. strikes on Sana’a and Hodeida.”

“There is potential for a general escalation if this happens, albeit one in which the allies have a clear military advantage,” he added. 

Al-Dawsari said the Houthis have continued developing the weapons needed to threaten the narrow shipping corridor despite largely refraining from maritime attacks over the past year.

“While the Houthis have largely refrained from attacking shipping for about a year, they have continued to advance their maritime capabilities, including missiles, drones and sea mines,” she said. “They may not be able to fully close the strait, but they could significantly disrupt shipping and raise costs and risks for commercial traffic.”

US CLAWS BACK KEY CONCESSION TO IRAN AFTER FRESH ATTACKS ON COMMERCIAL SHIPS IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ

But the group would not necessarily need to physically control the waterway. Its previous missile and drone campaign demonstrated that repeated attacks — or even a credible threat of them — can push major shipping companies to reroute vessels around Africa, driving up insurance, fuel and freight costs.

The Bab el-Mandeb connects the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and Suez Canal, making it one of the world’s most important maritime choke points. The consequences of renewed attacks would be especially severe because Iran has already disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, historically the principal route for roughly one-fifth of global energy supplies.

A substantial volume of Gulf oil has consequently been redirected through Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Reuters reported that the Bab el-Mandeb route now carries approximately 7% of global energy supplies and that Saudi Arabia has shifted about 70% of its energy exports through Yanbu.

The reported instructions also raise new questions about how much control Tehran exercises over major Houthi military decisions. 

“Any decision to escalate in the Bab al-Mandab would be strategic and tied more to the interests of Iran and the Axis of Resistance than to Houthi interests alone,” Al-Dawsari said. “Decisions of this magnitude are likely coordinated through the Axis’ joint operations room under IRGC oversight.”

A source close to the Houthis claimed representatives of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Yemen would control the timing of any move against the strait, Reuters reported.

The latest warning follows earlier Houthi threats against maritime traffic. In the June 12 report, Fox News Digital reported that the group had announced a complete ban on Israeli-owned ships in the Red Sea and declared them “legitimate targets.”

EXPERT WARNS OF ‘GENERAL ESCALATION’ OF FIGHTING IF HOUTHIS RESUME RED SEA CAMPAIGN

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital at the time that the actions of Iran and the Houthis were “unacceptable” and “dangerous,” warning that they could inflame regional tensions and further disrupt global supply chains.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has “repeatedly condemned” Houthis attacks against ships in the Red Sea and called on all parties Thursday to avoid further escalation, his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, told Fox News Digital.

“Any disruptions or attacks would endanger the safety and security of seafarers, freedom of navigation and the stability of global supply chains and have a negative impact on the economic and humanitarian situation in Yemen and beyond,” Dujarric said. “The Secretary-General underscores that U.N. Security Council Resolution 2722 (2024) must be fully respected in its entirety,” he said on the resolution condemning at least two dozen Houthis attacks on commercial vessels since November 2023 and demanding an immediate end to the attacks. 

The emerging threat has also renewed scrutiny of the Iranian weapons networks that helped build the Houthis’ missile and drone arsenal.

Amr Al-Bidh, foreign affairs chief of the Southern Arabian Transitional Council, said that the reported threat also exposed broader failures in the handling of Yemen’s security crisis. “The fact that individuals convicted of trafficking Iranian weapons to the Houthis and leading terrorist operations are now being released under a U.N.-brokered deal only underscores how poorly the Yemen crisis is being managed,” he said, “the main beneficiary of this vacuum is Iran, as seen in its credible threat to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait.”

In a July 15 letter obtained by Fox News Digital, the Southern Arabian Transitional Council formerly known as the Southern Transitional Council, a southern Yemeni separatist movement that seeks greater autonomy or independence for the territory of the former South Yemen, warned U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg that a U.N.-facilitated detainee agreement may include people the council says were convicted of assisting Iranian weapons transfers to the Houthis.

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An annex identifies individuals the council alleges were members of a cell that smuggled drones, aviation fuel and heavy and medium weapons from Iran to Sanaa.

The Office of the U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen said it received the letter only after the agreement had already been signed and stressed that it does not determine which detainees are released.

“We have received the letter after the agreement was signed,” spokesperson Ismini Palla told Fox News Digital. “The United Nations – as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – do not decide who is released and who remains in detention. Our role is limited to mediating the negotiations and ICRC leads on the implementation of the release operation.”

Palla added that “the names of those released are proposed and agreed between the parties under the framework of the Stockholm Agreement on prisoners’ exchange of 2018.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department and the Iranian Mission to the United Nations on the latest developments.

Fox News’ Paul Tilsley and Reuters contributed to this report.

Storm-1516, a Russia-linked influence operation — which routinely disseminates fabricated claims about Europe and the West — comes in all shapes and sizes.

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This time round, researchers say it could be behind a social media video in which alleged militants from Hezbollah — an Iran-backed Lebanese militant group — threatened to carry out attacks on French soil ahead of Bastille Day celebrations on 14 July.

In the video, three hooded men wearing military uniforms pose in front of a dummy of a French Foreign Legion soldier, whose face had the French flag painted on.

They threaten to “shed blood” on 14 July if France continues to “supply weapons” to the “Zionist regime”, in an apparent reference to Israel.

At the end of the clip, one man uses a knife to decapitate the dummy.

What do we know about this video?

The clip first spread on Telegram before moving to X and Facebook, gaining almost one million views across X posts.

In the content analysed by Euronews’s verification team, The Cube, the men don’t make an explicit reference to the group they belong to. However, the arm patch on the men’s uniform resembles Hezbollah, whose armed wing is classified as a terrorist organisation by the European Union.

In addition, social media posts also refer to them as Hezbollah.

However, there is a series of clues which suggest the video is fake. To begin, the video does not bear the group’s logo, which is typically included in content disseminated on its official channels.

Colleagues from Euronews Arabic-speaking service also told us that the accent resembled Levantine Arabic but not a Lebanese Arabic accent, adding that the speaker made multiple grammatical mistakes. This suggests that the video does not belong to Hezbollah.

Fact-checkers from AFP reported that the video spread through a series of posts published on the same day by a network of accounts that regularly use pro-Russian narratives.

They include accounts that are favourable to the Alliance of Sahel States, a group of countries that includes Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, has ties to Iran and is openly anti-Western.

Fact-checkers have also reported that the video was picked up by anti-Israel accounts, as well as by users who regularly reshare conspiracy theories.

Storm-1516’s changing faces

The video bears similarities to other content connected to the Storm-1516 disinformation campaign, as well as fake content targeting Ukraine and Western countries.

The network produces a wide variety of content, which includes impersonating European journalists and news outlets, paying actors to pose as fake whistleblowers, and increasingly incorporating AI-generated content into its operations.

Researchers have highlighted similarities between the latest fake Hezbollah clip and other Russia-linked content — including a clip flagged by the Gnida project, an anonymous research group tracking Russian influence operations, which was published in January 2025.

The video in question showed individuals claiming to belong to HTS — the Islamist group formerly led by Syria’s current president, Ahmed al-Sharaa — threaten to burn down Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, unless French authorities release Brahim Aouissaoui. The latter, a Tunisian citizen, killed three people during a terror attack he carried out in Nice in 2020.

Another example was a video purporting to show Hamas threatening attacks in France ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics. Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center examined the clip and deemed it to be consistent with Storm-1516’s tactics, while Hamas denied producing the video.

The 2026 World Cup final is set. A match between the reigning world champions versus the reigning European champions. Between the sport’s greatest player in history, Lionel Messi, versus its ascendant teenage prodigy, Lamine Yamal. It will be Argentina versus Spain, Sunday in East Rutherford, N.J.

The irrepressible Albiceleste overcame a 1-0 deficit against England in Wednesday’s semifinal, equalizing in the 85th minute and knocking in a go-ahead goal in extra time to send Argentina to its second consecutive World Cup final. Spain, meanwhile, is seeking to add a second star to its national jersey and first since 2010.

At stake in global soccer’s greatest match is more than just sporting history, however. Below, four takeaways for the business of soccer based on the Argentina-Spain matchup.

A battle of the high rollers

Lionel Messi, at 39, remains soccer’s best-paid endorser, raking in $70 million in off-pitch earnings for the current season, according to Sportico estimates. With his annual contract at Inter Miami earning him an additional $70 million, he is the sport’s second-highest paid player in the entire World Cup field behind only Cristiano Ronaldo. Overall, Messi is the fifth-highest paid athlete of all time, with $1.99 billion in career earnings.

But Lamine Yamal, the 19-year-old wunderkind from Spain, is no slouch: He’s earned $33 million this past year from Barcelona, and an additional $10 million from sponsors like Adidas and American Eagle. Currently ranked No. 10 among Sportico’s highest paid World Cup footballers, Yamal could leapfrog a few places higher by the next World Cup, particularly if he burnishes his already impressive resumé with a strong showing and a Spain victory on Sunday.

A knockout victory for Adidas

Sunday’s final will be an all-Adidas affair, with the company outfitting both Spain and Argentina and pitting two of its marquee stars against one another. 

The last Adidas vs. Adidas World Cup final was Germany against Argentina in 2014. That year, Adidas saw currency-neutral sales of soccer products rise by 20% to $2.4 billion (€2.1 billion). 

An Adidas spokeswoman declined to specify sales projections for the 2026 World Cup but said in a statement that the company is “proud” to outfit both finalists at this year’s tournament.

Archrival Nike made a splashy entrance into this year’s World Cup, with a star-studded commercial honoring stars like Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland, the latter of whom became a breakout hit in the U.S. But instead of the World Cup trophy, Nike walks away from the 2026 tournament with the rights to Germany’s national team. 

FIFA’s ticket pricing 

As of Wednesday evening, get-in prices for Sunday’s final started at $8,900 in the nosebleeds, per Ticketmaster, while lower-bowl seats ran as high as $24,000.

But unlike the lead-up to the tournament’s group stage matches, where the sticker shock for four-figure ticket prices led to large blocks of seats going unsold until the last minute, only a handful of seats to Sunday’s final were available for resale on Ticketmaster. 

The result is a reflection of FIFA’s ticket pricing strategy for the North American-hosted World Cup: set prices eye-poppingly high from the jump and limit the flow of cash into reseller’s hands. 

Soccer’s Hottest Clubs: La Liga and MLS 

A Spain and Argentina final reflects well on Spain’s LaLiga after the professional men’s league failed to put a representative in the Champions League final for a second year in a row. A whopping 17 players on La Roja’s roster come from the domestic top-flight league– of whom eight play for Barcelona, while the lion’s share of players for Argentina (7) also play within LaLiga. 

And while MLS can’t compete on quantity of players taking the pitch on Sunday, the ability to market around Inter Miami star Messi into and through the final match is the dream scenario for the U.S. league. This week, MLS launched a new campaign aimed at converting World Cup fans to year-round club supporters, anchored by Messi and ubiquitous pitchman and England legend David Beckham. Some 22 of the league’s 30 clubs are offering complimentary single-game tickets to first-time MLS match attendees.