Worldcrunch
With more than 115 attacks since 2023, Yemen’s Houthis now offer ship operators a website to register vessels and avoid drone or missile strikes, a move that raises alarms among maritime security experts and highlights the rebels’ bid to control global shipping lanes.
As the Houthis turn politics into perpetual warfare and view the state as spoils, the international community, and UN specifically, must decide whether to treat them as legitimate actors or confront them as extremists threatening Yemen’s fragile sovereignty.
The Islamic Republic of Iran recently sent Ismail Qaani, the Revolutionary guards general who keeps ‘resurrecting’ after being reported as killed or maimed, to Baghdad to discuss rearming its proxy militias. This appears to be Tehran’s first act of regional interference since Israeli strikes in June.
A decade ago, Saudi Arabia plunged directly into the Yemeni quagmire, launching a military intervention alongside several coalition countries. Everyone expected the battle to be settled in weeks. But it soon became clear, this flash intervention would turn into an endless war, making Yemen a testing ground for broader regional policies and interests.
With photographs from Belgrade, Khan Younis and Chicago — among other places.
An international front is refusing to bow to the White House’s demands, and it’s the only way out of the crisis.
Donald Trump has launched his most significant military operation since taking office, ordering airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthis. At the same time, he is directly threatening Iran while also offering a nuclear compromise — a dual approach that keeps the possibility of war on the table.
Israel has killed thousands of Hamas fighters. But the Gaza-based terrorist organization has not yet been completely destroyed, nor have its allied militias in the region.
The absence of documentation and an international accountability mechanism capable of deterring warring parties in Yemen has exacerbated the severity of violations related to sexual assault against children. These violations have spread across social media, revealing the extent of unspoken crimes that have yet to find their way to justice.
The Salafis, along with Gulf States like Saudi Arabia, consider the Shias as a greater threat to Islam than Zionism.
The Houthis took control of Yemen’s capital Sanaa a decade ago in a religious coup masquerading as a revolution. Yet the Houthis have begun to speak more openly and boldly about their vision for the future of Yemen — and in doing so, may have planted the seeds of their defeat, exiled Yemeni journalist Afrah Nasser writes.
As the conflict rages on across the Israeli-Lebanese border, Iran, which is Hezbollah’s principal sponsor, appears to be doing all it can to avert a war spreading around the Middle East. It could wind up on Tehran’s doorstep.
Many people, especially in the Arab region, hailed the Houthis’ attacks against Israel. But what they may not know is that Yemeni people have been caught in the crossfire.
The death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash comes in an already tense context, five weeks after Iran’s confrontation with Israel. The consequences are heavy, both in terms of regional and domestic conflicts.
While the Palestinian cause is important for Iran and the Arab militias it backs, the return of this issue to the forefront may not benefit the resistance camp. And its tactic of strategic patience may not produce the intended results.
The Middle East’s militant and terror gangs, often described as Iran’s proxy forces, may have more in common with the cartels of a globalized war than with the fighters with a cause, more typical in the 20th century.
The death of three U.S. soldiers has raised the stakes in a low-simmering, but constant escalation between Washington and Tehran that could explode from the shadows of the war in Gaza — even if by pure accident.
The Iranian-supported Houthi rebels in Yemen are now using the conflict in Gaza as a justification for widening its reach. But the direct clash with the U.S. and others in the Red Sea may take a nine-year-long war to a whole other level.
Iran’s revolutionary regime is believed to have aided Russia against Ukraine and goaded Hamas into attacking Israel. Could its insidious backing for Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping finally end the West’s appeasement of a hooligan state.
As the situation escalates in the Middle East, the prospect of an all-out war may hinge on whether Iran will cross the Rubicon.
The recent repression of an old man dancing at a fish market shows how on edge Iran’s regime is domestically, writes Pierre Haski. While Iran may be stepping up its game regionally, its fragile attitude domestically can be a sign of what an irrational actor the mullah regime can be.
The Iran-backed Yemeni rebel group Houthis have seized a vessel in the Red Sea’s shipping route and took the ship’s 25 crew members hostage. It’s just the latest sign that the spillover from Gaza may arrive first from the south.
Though deep historical rivalries between Saudi Arabia and Yemen have little to do with Egypt, it has been drawn into the anti-Houthi confict. Having given initial support to the Saudi coalition, how far Cairo will go is the source of intense speculation.
CHINA BLAMED FOR U.S. DATA BREACH Chinese hackers recruited by their government are being accused of breaching the computer system of the federal Office of Personnel Management in December, The Washington Post reports. The personal data of as many as four million federal employees, including their banking records and credit card information, has been affected. […]
Egypt’s participation in the military operation “Decisive Storm” against the Houthis in Yemen is a question of interests, alliances and cold, hard cash.