US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that Yemen’s Houthi rebels had been “suckered” into attacking Red Sea shipping by Iran.

“The Houthis largely were smart and stayed out of all this throughout the conflict, but they now apparently have gotten themselves suckered into this, going after Saudi Arabia and their ships,” Rubio said on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian summit in Manila.

“I hope they will de-escalate, because I think the Houthis, frankly, got snookered into this thing by the Iranians,” he told reporters.

Meanwhile, Oman, a key mediator between Yemen’s Houthis and Saudi Arabia, said it was working to resume talks after the Iran-backed rebels hit a Saudi ship in the Red Sea a day earlier.

Oman’s Foreign Ministry voiced “great concern” at the situation in the Red Sea, adding it was “currently working in coordination with its brothers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Yemeni parties, and the UN Special Envoy for Yemen with the aim of resuming the political process and roadmap to achieve security and stability in the region”.

Rubio also said that a landmark nuclear cooperation pact with Saudi Arabia would result only in a peaceful, civilian atomic program.

“Suffice it to say that any agreement that we’re going to make with any country in the world on civil nuclear energy is going to be one that will have safeguards in place to ensure that it can’t be turned into a weapons program,” Rubio said on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian summit in Manila.

“Saudi Arabia seeks to have a peaceful, civil nuclear program,” he told reporters, noting a similar deal was in place with the United Arab Emirates.

Likewise, the Iranian army said that it would continue its strikes around the region until the attacks on Iran stopped, state television reported.

“The armed forces’ retaliatory attacks will continue as long as the US attacks on the country’s infrastructure and coastal areas continue,” said army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia according to state TV, adding that the country was ready for “every enemy scenario”.

In Jordan, the army said that it had intercepted Iranian missiles and drones, as Tehran responded to US airstrikes by hitting Washington’s allies in the region.

The Jordanian army said in a statement it had intercepted three missiles on Thursday morning, while a fourth landed in an uninhabited area, and that it had intercepted six drones on Wednesday evening, with no casualties or material damage.

This coincided with the price of main international oil contract, Brent North Sea, soaring five percent Thursday after Houthi rebels claimed to have struck two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea.

Brent reached $98.80 a barrel while main US contract, West Texas Intermediate, rallied 3.8 percent to $90.11 a barrel, as the attacks potentially opened a new front in the Middle East war. (AFP)