Picture This: Escalating Marine and Aviation Risks in the Middle East

What we know

Iran is seeking to impede traffic through the Strait of Hormuz by threatening and attacking individual vessels attempting to pass through. We have so far not yet seen evidence of Iranian attempts to lay mines. We are seeing an increase in GPS signal jamming causing position displacement of GPS enabled devices.

Major civilian airports across the Gulf are likely to remain priority targets for Iran for the duration of joint US-Israeli operations, probably lasting several weeks, given the commercial and political impact of sustained flight disruption.

Why it matters

S&P Global Market Intelligence expects attacks on vessels to continue at a higher pace for at least several days, tapering off over the coming weeks and posing an indiscriminate severe risk to all vessels attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Houthis appear to be holding back while they gauge the severity of the impact of US-Israeli operations on Iran, but a resumption of attacks against shipping in the Red Sea is very likely the longer the US/Israel-Iran war continues.

There is a severe risk of shootdown through misidentification for all aircraft across the Middle East Gulf and Gulf of Oman, as well as the airspace of Iraq, Kuwait, eastern Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and northern Oman. In Iran, the risk to aviation is currently extreme.

This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.