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A senior United Nations official defended the decision by President Joe Biden to limit his response to the Yemen Houthi terrorist organization to a weak “global terrorist” branding, claiming the move can help “safeguard many transactions necessary for our humanitarian activities.” The official – Edem Wosornu, the director of operations at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – added, however, that even this minimal action could hurt the destitute economy of Yemen and thus elevate the humanitarian needs of civilians. Biden’s administration announced that he would brand Ansarullah, the official name of the Houthi terrorist gang, a “Specially...

Author's note: See the update at the bottom of this story that describes changes made to our original report. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The pilot of a U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier II has reportedly intercepted multiple Houthi drones during the militants’ sustained anti-shipping campaign that’s been focused on the Red Sea, along with barrages of drones sent to strike Israel. It isn't clear how many, if any, of the drones Harriers have shot down. Until now, we had heard accounts of U.S. and allied warships bringing down Houthi drones and missiles, as well as aerial kills by U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets...

Late Wednesday, American forces carried out a drone attack in Iraq that killed three members of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, a group backed by Iran, one of whom was involved in the drone strike that killed three U.S. soldiers in January.U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said forces conducted a unilateral strike in Iraq around 9:30 p.m. in response to a drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan on Jan. 28. The strike, which occurred on a main thoroughfare in Baghdad's Mashtal neighborhood, was considered a "high-value individual target," Fox News is told. One of those killed is believed to...

Telecom firms linked to the UN-recognised Yemen government have said they fear Houthi rebels are planning to sabotage a network of submarine cables in the Red Sea critical to the functioning of the western internet and the transmission of financial data. The warning came after a Houthi-linked Telegram channel published a map of the cables running along the bed of the Red Sea. The image was accompanied by a message: “There are maps of international cables connecting all regions of the world through the sea. It seems that Yemen is in a strategic location, as internet lines that connect entire...

A new explosion was reported off Yemen on Thursday after overnight US strikes targeted 10 attack drones and a ground control station belonging to the Iran-backed Huthi rebels. The explosion, reported by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency, happened near a vessel west of the port city of Hodeida. (excerpt) Early Thursday in Yemen, US forces targeted a "Huthi UAV ground control station and 10 Huthi one-way UAVs" that "presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and the US Navy ships in the region", a CENTCOM statement said, using an abbreviation for unmanned aerial vehicles or drones.

A Houthi missile recently put a US destroyer's close-in weapons system to the test, a report said. A warship's CIWS is usually considered its last line of defense and is for close-range intercepts. The Tuesday incident marks the latest Houthi missile attack, though not the latest exchange of fire. A Houthi anti-ship cruise missile fired into the Red Sea came within a mile of a US Navy destroyer on Tuesday, a report said, close enough that the American warship turned to its close-in weapons system — a last line of defense. Most missiles are shot down farther out. This was...

The request published in "Al-Araby Al-Jadeed" comes after a serious injury to the Egyptian economy due to a decrease in the passage of ships in the Suez Canal • In Egypt they emphasize that the war has already given its signals on the Egyptian economy - not only in the issue of the Suez Canal, but also in the export of gas. The Houthi blockade of ships in the Red Sea is beginning to affect the revenues of the Suez Canal, which accounts for about 2% of Egypt's GDP. As a result, Cairo appealed to the Houthi rebels to focus...

Yemen's Houthis claimed that they have launched a missile attack on the US Navy ship USS Lewis B. Puller in the Gulf of Aden. Watch in the report for more details...

Britain’s warships cannot attack Houthi targets on land because they lack the firepower, in a situation described by former defence chiefs as a “scandal”. None of the Royal Navy’s destroyers or frigates have the ability to fire missiles at targets on land, leaving the US to carry out the majority of strikes on Houthi targets with support from RAF planes based 1,500 miles away. A British defence source said HMS Diamond, the destroyer stationed in the Red Sea, had not joined retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets because it did not have “the capability to fire to land targets”. The Ministry...

#BREAKING ⚡️Houthis announced that they hit an American warship.— UKR REPORT (@UKR_Report) January 24, 2024

Iran is “very directly involved” in ship attacks that Yemen’s Houthi rebels have carried out during Israel’s war against Hamas, the U.S. Navy’s top Mideast commander told The Associated Press on Monday. Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the Navy‘s 5th Fleet, stopped short of saying Tehran directed individual attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. However, Cooper acknowledged that attacks associated with Iran have expanded from previously threatening just the Persian Gulf and its Strait of Hormuz into waters across the wider Middle East.

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh responded to a question on why the U.S. hasn’t taken the Houthis out of commission by stating that “it’s really up to the Houthis when they make the calculation to stop” attacking. Co-host John Roberts asked, “The U.S. military’s got the capability of putting the Houthis out of business this afternoon, why don’t we just do it?”

Yemen's Huthi rebels claimed another attack on a US ship early Friday, after the United States launched fresh strikes on rebel targets over their aggression towards vessels in and around the Red Sea. While the Iran-backed rebels maintained they had struck the commercial vessel in the Gulf of Aden, the US military later said the group's missiles had missed their mark. The Huthis said in a statement posted to social media that their "naval forces... carried out a targeting operation against an American ship" -- identified as the Chem Ranger -- "with several appropriate naval missiles, resulting in direct hits".

On Thursday’s broadcast of “CNN This Morning,” Biden Campaign Co-Chair Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) responded to a question on what is the Biden administration’s end game for strikes on the Houthis by stating that “my hope is that we will find a way to deter Iran, but for the intermediate term, it’s going to require more action to prevent the Houthis from striking shipping.” Co-host Phil Mattingly asked, “I do want to ask, on other foreign policy issues, because there is a lot going on right now, the fourth U.S. strikes in Yemen targeting Houthi rebels. The biggest question that...

President Joe Biden’s administration announced on Wednesday that it was designating the Houthis as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” (SDGT), which is weaker than the designation of Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) that the group had under the Trump administration. The Biden administration’s designation is somewhat of a reversal of its previous policy and a vindication of the Trump administration’s policy on the Houthis. In 2020, the Trump administration designated the Houthis as an FTO, which cut off the Iran-backed group from the international banking system. Shortly after Biden took office in 2021, his administration rescinded that designation, arguing that it...

Commanders and advisors from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are on the ground in Yemen and playing a direct role in Houthi rebel attacks on commercial traffic in the Red Sea. The IRGC has stationed missile and drone trainers and operators in Yemen, as well as personnel providing tactical intelligence support to the Houthis, U.S. and Middle East officials told Semafor. The IRGC, through its overseas Qods Force, has also overseen the transfer to the Houthis of the attack drones, cruise missiles, and medium-range ballistic missiles used in a string of strikes on Red Sea and Israeli targets in...

The current escalation between Yemen's Houthi militia and the US-led naval coalition in the Red Sea serves the Iran-backed militants in several ways. In fact, it is even welcomed, according to some analysts. "The Houthis have been looking for an opportunity for confrontation with the United States," Hisham al-Omeisy, Yemen conflict analyst and former director of Washington's Information Research Center for Yemen, told DW. "For the past eight years, they've been telling their followers that they are at war with the US and with Israel, so this is a golden opportunity for them that they need to capitalize on," al-Omeisy...

The Houthis don’t seem to have been dissuaded from attacks on US targets thus far. In the last couple days they have launched attacks on a US commercial vessel and at a US Navy destroyer. Fortunately, the missile aimed at the destroyer was shot down. Today, the US hit another target inside Yemen as the Houthis were preparing another strike. The strikes on Tuesday were aimed at four missiles that were being prepared to be fired from their launchers and posed an imminent threat to merchant vessels and Navy ships, the command said in a statement…Residents in the area said...

The Biden administration is expected to re-designate the Houthis as a specially designated global terrorist (SDGT) entity amid continued attacks by the Yemen-based militia, a source familiar told CNN Tuesday. The administration removed the Houthis’ SDGT designation and de-listed it as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) in February 2021, after it was designated by the Trump administration in its final weeks. At the time, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the decision to remove the group’s designations was driven by concerns that it could imperil the ability to deliver crucial assistance to the people of Yemen. He said it was...

Houthi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said Monday night: “The Yemeni armed forces consider all American and British ships and warships participating in the aggression against our country as hostile targets”. The missile came from near Hodeidah, a Red Sea port city long held by the Houthis, the US said. ..