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President Donald Trump looks on as military strikes are launched against Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis over the group's attacks against Red Sea shipping, at an unspecified location in this handout image released March 15, 2025.
US strikes Houthi strongholds, seeks to keep shipping lanes open
The United States launched widespread strikes on the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen on Saturday, killing 53 people and injuring 98 as it targeted military sites and a power station in the rebel group’s southwest stronghold. The attacks were the largest US military operation since President Donald Trump returned to office.
“To Iran: Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY! Do NOT threaten the American People, their President, who has received one of the largest mandates in Presidential History, or Worldwide shipping lanes,” Trumpposted on social. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi urged the US to halt the airstrikes, while Gen. Hossein Salami denied that Iran was involved in Houthi offensives.
The United States has been part of a Saudi-led coalition that has fought the Houthis since 2014, but tensions have been especially frayed ever since the Yemenite rebel group started ambushing Israeli ships that passed through the Red Sea shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, disrupting a hefty portion of global trade. There has been calm in the region ever since Israel and Hamas brokered a ceasefire deal in January, but the Houthis on Tuesday said they would restart their guerilla campaign on the water.
Don’t expect a truce soon: Once the leader of the coalition against the Houthis, Saudi Arabia now seems to be on the sidelines, leaving the US to lead the fight against the Iran-aligned group — and the Trump administration has pledged to continue strikes over the next few days. The Houthi resistance has been stubborn for some time, and the militants have promised to retaliate, so the Americans might have their work cut out as they seek to maintain a vital shipping pipeline.
“A few days of strikes will probably not bring about an end to the Houthis’ attacks,” counterterrorism expert Thomas S. Warrickwrote. “Unless the Trump administration is prepared to go even further.”
Smoke rises after Israeli strikes near Sanaa airport, in Sanaa, Yemen, on Dec. 26, 2024.
Israel hits the Houthis: Is this the opening of a bigger campaign?
Israel on Thursday struck military sites and power infrastructure across parts of Yemen controlled by the Houthi militia.
The move is the latest in an escalating tit-for-tat between Israel and the Iran-backed rebels who control most of Yemen and have launched several missiles and drones at Israel over the past week alone.
The Houthis pledged solidarity with Hamas in the days after the group’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and have attacked Israel directly as well as ships in the Red Sea since then.
Earlier this week, Israel threatened to kill the group’s leaders after a Houthi missile landed in a Tel Aviv playground.
Is this just a prelude? Israel in recent months has severely hobbled Iran’s other two main regional proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, killing the leaders of both groups. Is Israel gearing up for a bigger campaign against the last relatively unscathed part of Iran’s “axis of resistance”?A view shows an explosion following Israeli strikes, in Hodeidah, Yemen, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video released on September 29, 2024.
Israel targets Houthis while Hezbollah looks for new leadership
Israel struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday, including power stations and the seaport of Hodeidah. The offensive came after Houthis fired three missiles at Israel in the past two weeks, signaling Israel’s readiness to engage in a larger regional war against Iranian-backed groups and regimes.
“Our message is clear — no place is too far,”said Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after the strikes. Nevertheless, US President Joe Biden reiterated on Sunday that an all-out war“has to be” avoided and pledged to speak with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu.
But Netanyahu already told world leaders at the United Nations on Friday that Israel will “continue degrading Hezbollah” until it is able to secure communities on its border with Lebanon and will continue fighting Hamas until “total victory” is achieved. Netanyahu depicted the conflict as one between Israel and Iran, and said “In this battle between good and evil, there must be no equivocation.”
Who will lead Hezbollah?
Shortly after Netanyahu’s address at UNGA on Friday, an Israeli strike killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. His death leaves a power vacuum that won’t be easy to fill, especially sinceHezbollah’s leadership has been decimated in recent Israeli attacks. Two leading contenders are Hashem Safieddine, head of Hezbollah’s executive council and Nasrallah’s cousin, and Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general since 1991, a longtime Shia activist and close ally of Nasrallah.Hezbollah’s shura council will convene in the coming days to decide who will take the reins.
We’re watching how the expanding war and newly opened power vacuum upset regional stability.
People, mainly Houthi supporters, rally to mark the anniversary of the birth of the Prophet Mohammad and to show solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Sanaa, Yemen, September 15, 2024.
Netanyahu vows retaliation against Houthis, Hezbollah threatens war
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday vowed that the Houthis would pay a “heavy price” after a missile fired from Yemen struck central Israel. The Houthis credited theability of new hypersonic ballistic missiles to evade interception by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system and warned of more strikes ahead of the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks “in solidarity with the Palestinians.”
Hamas welcomed the strike, which represents an escalation from Houthi aggression against Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since November. The group had previously also fired missiles at the Israeli port city ofEilat and struck Tel Aviv with a drone in July, killing one man and wounding four others.
Also this weekend,Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem, warned Israel that a full-scale war on Lebanon would result in “large losses on both sides” and further displacement of Israelis. Qassem made the remarks after Israel’s Channel 13 reported that Netanyahu was “on the verge” of launching a “broad and strong operation” on the country’s northern border with Lebanon.The Israeli military reported Saturday that it struck Hezbollah “weapons storage facilities” in Lebanon after “a barrage of 55 projectiles” were fired from Lebanese to Israeli territory earlier that morning. We’re watching for signs of further escalation.
Why Putin agreed to the US-Russia prisoner swap
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from the Adriatic Sea.
What does the biggest prisoner exchange in decades tell us about Putin?
First, the huge prisoner exchange, the biggest that we've seen for decades. I think it's important to note that it exposes the nature of Russia and the West, because on the one side, Putin was desperate to get back convicted killers, murderers, and failed spies. I think that was very important for him in order to perhaps improve their other sacking morale of his security and intelligence services after significant setbacks that they've been suffering over the last few years, and then I think the success of securing the release of journalists, brave journalists, and brave defenders of freedom and democracy in Russia. I think it is a good day, both for the individuals, needless to say, that have been gotten their freedom, and also for the fact that it does expose the very difference of nature between Russia and the West.
What's the European reaction to what's happening in the Middle East?
Well, deep apprehension. The fact that it's not been impossible to secure the ceasefire in Gaza means that all of the other conflicts of the risk are escalating. That is Yemen, that is now Hezbollah-Israel, that is now obviously with the killing of Hamas leader in Tehran, which is quite a daring and provocative thing, the risk of it going really bad.
Let's hope that the wiser heads in Tehran and Washington primarily prevails in the next few days, but we don't know.
Flames and smoke rise from the site of Israeli air strikes at the port of Hodeidah, Yemen July 21, 2024.
Israel and the Houthis escalate their fight
In support of Palestinians now under fire in Gaza, Houthi rebels based in Yemen have attacked ships they say are affiliated with Israel in the Red Sea and have sent missiles and drones flying toward Israeli targets. Israel, with help from the US and neighboring Arab countries, has blocked most of those attacks.
But last Friday, the Houthis claimed credit for adrone attack on a Tel Aviv apartment building that killed one Israeli man and injured eight more. Israel responded with air strikes on the Houthi-controlled Red Sea port of Hodeidah in Yemen. Authorities there said the Israeli attack killed three civilians and injured 80.
The Biden administration has designated the Houthis a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist Group,” but has so far stopped short of the more serious label as a ”Global Terrorist Organization” for fear that automatically resulting sanctions would do little to deter the group but deepen the misery of Yemen’s large number of starving people.
There are several questions raised by this dramatic Israel-Houthi escalation.
- Will it distract Israel’s government from the more dangerous fights with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon?
- The Houthis claim the Saudis, who fought the Houthis in Yemen’s civil war, provided the Israeli strike with access to its airspace. Can the Saudis stay out of the conflict?
- How much damage will Iran allow their Houthi allies to sustain before they become directly involved?
- Will the attack on this crucial Yemeni port add to the humanitarian disaster inside Yemen?
Neither the Saudis nor Iran wants to get caught in a shooting war. And despite the escalation, the Israeli-Houthi fight will probably remain contained. But the stakes are high enough that no government in the region can afford to stop watching.
The Galaxy Leader commercial ship, seized by Yemen's Houthis last month, is seen off the coast of al-Salif, Yemen, December 5, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Migrant boat capsizes off Yemen coast, US banana giant found liable for murders, EU stocks up on bird flu vaccines, “Pink slime” crisis in America
8: A South Florida jury found US banana giant Chiquita liable for the deaths of eight men killed by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, a right-wing paramilitary group designated as terrorists by the US. Chiquita, which financed the AUC with nearly $2 million, was ordered to pay the victims’ families $38.3 million in penalties. Under its former name, the United Fruit Company, Chiquita was famously meddlesome in Latin American politics – its infamous 1928 massacre of striking banana workers in Colombia was immortalized in Nobel laureate Gabriel García Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
40 million: These vaccines are for the birds – literally. The European Union has secured 40 million doses of bird flu vaccine as cases of the disease continue to rise. So far, at least 10 US states have reported outbreaks among farm animals in recent months, with three cases of the illness jumping to humans.
1,265: Pink slime is oozing through America. A new study has found that at least 1,265 websites are masquerading as local news outlets while drawing funding from dark money sources or openly political financiers on the left and right. The sites are particularly concentrated in swing states. The grossest part of the story? Owing to the long-standing decline of local journalism, these imposter sites, known as “pink slime” (a beef industry term), now outnumber legitimate local outlets for the first time.
Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman meets with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Al Yamamah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 29, 2024.
Are the Saudis after peace in Yemen again?
Saudi Arabia is reportedly showing fresh interest in a roadmap to peace in Yemen that was iced late last year in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
The background: For a decade, Saudi Arabia has backed the Yemeni government in a brutal civil war against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels who now control most of the country. The conflict plunged Yemen into a hellish humanitarian catastrophe.
A peace roadmap from last year, which envisions power-sharing and cash transfers to the Houthis for public salaries, was shelved when the group began attacking Red Sea shipping in solidarity with the Palestinians, driving down shipping volumes through the crucial commercial waterway by half.
The Houthis would have to stop those as part of any peace deal.
Wider lens: The Saudis are keen to stabilize the Yemen situation. At the same time, Washington wants to keep Riyadh interested in normalizing ties with Israel as part of a deal that would include a US security guarantee and progress towards a Palestinian state.
But Saudi’s peace push is a gamble for Biden. “A deal would hand the Houthis basically everything they want,” says Gregory Brew, an Iran specialist at Eurasia Group. “Hard for Biden to spin that as a win, even if Red Sea commerce picks back up.”