Yemen Civil War

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the latest Houthi military operations were a response to the Israeli airstrike on the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis

Yemen's Houthi rebels could free a political leader with ties to the internationally recognised government who has been detained for nearly a decade, under a preliminary prisoner swap deal announced by the United Nations on Monday. Mohamed Qahtan is the leader of the Sunni Islamist Islah party, which is aligned with the Saudi Arabia-backed government, and he has been held incommunicado by the Iranian-backed Houthis since 2015, the United Nations said. The office of UN special envoy Hans Grundberg convened a meeting in Oman with the International Committee of the Red Cross over the weekend to facilitate talks centred on a prisoner exchange, in accordance with the 2018 Stockholm Agreement, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The two Yemeni sides agreed to meet to discuss the final list of who will be released and the details of Qahtan's release, Dujarric said, without providing details on the potential agreement. Qahtan's release has been a point of contention for years, Dujarric ..

The drone attack happened around dawn off the coast of the rebel-held port city of Hodeida, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre said

The heads of six UN agencies and three international humanitarian organisations issued a joint appeal Thursday to Yemen's Houthi rebels for the immediate release of 17 members of their staff who were recently detained along with many others also being held by the Iranian-backed group. Their appeal was echoed by a statement from several dozen nations and the European Union ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on Yemen where UN special envoy Hans Grundberg said the Houthis were holding all those detained in the crackdown incommunicado. The Houthis said Monday they had arrested members of an American-Israeli spy network, days after detaining the staffers from the UN and aid organisations. Major General Abdulhakim al-Khayewani, head of the Houthis' intelligence agency, announced the arrests, saying the spy network had first operated out of the US Embassy in the capital Sanaa. After it was closed in 2015 following the Houthi takeover of Sanaa and northern Yemen, he said, they continued

Eleven Yemeni employees of United Nations agencies have been detained by Yemen's Houthi rebels under unclear circumstances, authorities said Friday, as the rebels face increasing financial pressure and airstrikes from a US-led coalition. Others working for aid groups also likely have been taken. The detentions come as the Houthis, who seized Yemen's capital nearly a decade ago and have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition since shortly after, have been targeting shipping throughout the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. But while gaining more attention internationally, the secretive group has cracked down at dissent at home, including recently sentencing 44 people to death. Regional officials, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorised to brief journalists, initially confirmed at least nine UN detentions. Those held include staff from the UN human rights agency, its development programme, the World Food ...

Yemen's Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia's state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about surprises they plan for the battles at sea to counter the United States and its allies, which have so far been able to down any missile or bomb-carrying drone that comes near their warships in Mideast waters. On Thursday, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the Houthis' secretive supreme leader, said the rebels will start hitting ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope in Africa's southern tip. Until now, the rebels have largely .

The longer the war in Gaza goes on and Yemen's Houthi rebels keep attacking ships in the Red Sea the greater the risk that Yemen could be propelled back into war, the UN special envoy for the poorest Arab nation warned on Thursday. Hans Grundberg told the UN Security Council it has been impossible to shield his promising efforts to restore peace to Yemen because the reality is, what happens regionally impacts Yemen and what happens in Yemen can impact the region. Since November, the Iranian-backed Houthis have targeted ships in the Red Sea to demand a cease-fire in Israel's offensive in Gaza. It began after Gaza's Hamas rulers launched a surprise attack in southern Israel on October 7 that killed about 1,200 people and led to about 250 others being taken captive. Israel's ongoing military operation has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry. The Houthi attacks targeting vessels since November, however, have increasingly had little or no connecti

In normal times, more than a quarter of global container cargo - including apparel, appliances, auto parts, chemicals and agricultural products like coffee - move via the Suez Canal

The Red Sea falls in an important transit route from Mediterranean Sea to Arabian Sea through Suez Canal

A ship travelling through the southern Red Sea was attacked by a suspected Yemen Houthi rebel drone early Tuesday, authorities said, the latest assault in their campaign targeting vessels over Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The attack happened west of Hodeida, Yemen, and the projectile caused slight damage to the vessel's windows on the bridge, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said. A small vessel had been nearby the ship before the attack, it added. The private security firm Ambrey identified the vessel as a Barbados-flagged, United Kingdom-owned cargo ship. No one was hurt onboard the vessel, which suffered minor damage, the firm said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. However, suspicions immediately fell on the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea over Israel's offensive in Gaza against Hamas. But they have frequently targeted vessels with

Iranian-backed Houthis on Wednesday fired an anti-ship ballistic missile towards the Gulf of Aden. The missile was successfully shot down by US Navy missile destroyer USS Carney

Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a missile Friday at a US warship patrolling the Gulf of Aden, forcing it to shoot down the projectile, the US military said Friday. The attack on the destroyer USS Carney marked a further escalation in the biggest confrontation at sea the US Navy has seen in the Middle East in decades, as Houthi missile fire set another commercial vessel ablaze Friday night. The Carney attack represents the first time the Houthis directly targeted a U.S. warship since the rebels began their assaults on shipping in October, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity because no authorization had been given to discuss the incident. That contradicted a statement by the US military's Central Command, which said the Houthis fired "toward" the Carney. As it has in previous strikes, the Pentagon said it was difficult to determine what exactly the Houthis were trying to hit. Ever since the Israel-Hamas war broke out, the U.S. has tried to temper its descriptions of the ...

On Tuesday, the US hit four Houthi missiles in Yemen in a preemptive strike, a far more limited move than the one carried out on Jan 11

The US launched a new strike against the Yemen-based Houthis on Tuesday, hitting anti-ship missiles in the third assault on the Iranian-backed group in recent days, a US official said. The strike came as the Iranian-backed Houthis claimed responsibility for a missile attack against the Malta-flagged bulk carrier Zografia in the Red Sea. No one was injured. The vessel had been heading north to the Suez Canal when it was attacked, the Greek Shipping and Island Policy Ministry said. This latest exchange suggested there has been no let-up in Houthi attacks on shipping in the region, despite the massive US and British assault on the group on Friday, bombing more than 60 targets in 28 locations using warship- and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets. The Houthis' military spokesman, Brig Gen Yahya Saree, said in a pre-recorded statement that it fired after the ship's crew refused to answer warning calls and that the vessel was heading for a port in Israel. According to th

Yemen's Houthi rebels fired an anti-ship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea on Sunday, but a US fighter jet shot it down in the latest attack roiling global shipping amid Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, officials said. The attack marks the first US-acknowledged targeting by the Houthis since America and allied nations began strikes Friday on the rebels following weeks of assaults on shipping in the Red Sea. The Houthis have targeted that crucial corridor linking Asian and Mideast energy and cargo shipments to the Suez Canal onward to Europe over the Israel-Hamas war, attacks that threaten to widen that conflict into a regional conflagration. The Houthis, a Shiite rebel group allied with Iran, did not immediately acknowledge the attack. The Houthi fire targeted the USS Laboon, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer operating in the southern reaches of the Red Sea, the U.S. military's Central Command said in a statement. The missile came from near Hodeid

The U.S. military early Saturday struck another Houthi-controlled site in Yemen that they have determined was putting commercial vessels in the Red Sea at risk. That's according to two U.S. officials who spoke anonymously to The Associated Press to discuss an operation that hadn't yet been publicly announced. The first day of strikes on Friday hit 28 locations and struck more than 60 targets. However, the U.S. determined the additional location, a radar site, still presented a threat to maritime traffic, one official said. Earlier on Friday, the U.S. Navy warned American-flagged vessels to steer clear of areas around Yemen in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden for the next 72 hours after the U.S. and Britain launched multiple airstrikes targeting Houthi rebels. The warning in a notice to shippers came as Yemen's Houthis vowed fierce retaliation for the U.S.-led strikes, further raising the prospect of a wider conflict in a region already beset by Israel's war in Gaza. U.S. military

Sunak noted that Houthis in recent months have conducted a series of "dangerous and destabilising attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea

US-led airstrikes on Yemen's Houthi rebels over their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea pulled the world's focus Friday back on the yearslong war raging in the Arab world's poorest nation, even as shipping across the wider Mideast remains threatened. As the bombing lit the predawn sky over multiple sites held by the Iranian-backed rebels, Saudi Arabia quickly sought to distance itself from the attacks as it seeks to maintain a delicate dtente with Iran and a cease-fire in the Yemen war from which it hopes to finally withdraw. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy acknowledged an attack days earlier on a ship in the far reaches of the Indian Ocean an attack that may signal Iran's willingness to strike vessels as part of a wider maritime campaign over Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Tehran on Thursday separately seized another tanker involved in an earlier crisis over America seizing oil targeted by international sanctions on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. Yemen has been target

The saga unfolding in the seas off the coast of Yemen reveals a new facet of asymmetric warfare in today's world

Ports, Shipping and Waterways secretary T K Ramachandran on Wednesday said the problems in the Red Sea will have "no impact" on India's maritime trade with the rest of the world. The situation around the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping route connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean, has escalated due to recent attacks by Yemen-based Houthi militants. Asked will the Red sea developments have any impact on India's maritime trade, he said, "no impact". The strait, vital for 30 per cent of global container traffic, has seen increased tensions with various incidents in 2023, including attacks and military manoeuvres by regional and global powers. The Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, also known as the "Gate of Tears" in Arabic, is a crucial trade route that connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. It separates Africa from the Arabian Peninsula.