the houthis in yemen. a strike for stability or a step towards escalation? the prime minister praised the success of the mission targeting the ability of the houthis to threaten commercial cargoes in the red sea, but uk maritime trade operations said there were multiples reports of small boats approaching ships tonight. as protestors filled the streets of the yemeni capital, will this escalation serve as a warning or could the west be doing exactly what the iranian backed forces want? israel is encircled. we ll hearfrom a human rights activist who s in yemen and the former cia director general david petraeus. the oil price jumped today on fears of a wider conflict involving disruption to energy flows out of the persian gulf could all this upend tentative signs of turnaround in the world economy? and with the pm in ukraine trying to help shift a stalemate, israel at the international court ofjustice over south african accusations of genocide in gaza, and china threatening ta
the houthis are an armed group from a sub sect they are a political and military group who control a large part of yemen. most of the yemeni population lives in areas under houthi control. as well as sanaa and the north of yemen, the houthi rebels control the red sea coastline. the group collects taxes and also prints money. the group was formed in the 1990s to combat what they saw as the corruption of the then president, ali abdullah saleh. iran is suspected of supplying the houthis with weapons, and the us says iranian intelligence is critical to enabling them to target ships. the government has been backed against the houthis by a coalition of arab countries
threatened escalation, as you would expect, but on the other hand seemed to take pains to underscore that the houthis were not intent on attacking vessels that were not headed towards israel, which might be interpreted as an attempt on their part to climb down but it is hard to say. it is entirely possible that the houthis continue to indiscriminately attack shipping transiting the red sea. the target that was chosen was quite broad and included what might be quite high value targets for the houthis so one would think that might be something they interpret as serious a statement of intent. dr sidharth kaushal, good to talk to you, thank you for your time. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. let s stay with those strikes in yemen, and hear from lord dannatt, crossbench peer and former head of the british army. he explained why the uk and us committed to military action. this situation has been building over the last few days and a couple of weeks and we ve seen evidenc
went on in spring of 2015, thinking that using their superior weaponry they could bomb these relatively unsophisticated poorly armed, poorly organised rabble like militia straight to the negotiating table, and i went down to riyadh at the time, something called the coalition centre and i interviewed saudi officials who said it would be over by the end of the year. it has taken eight years and the houthis are still in place and i have only got stronger. although we call them the houthi rebels and they are the illegitimate government, only recognised by syria and iran, not by the un, but they are the de facto government of most of the populated areas of yemen stop they now have a very powerful arsenal of cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drones that iran has helped train them to use and assemble and fire. while
led by saudi arabia and the uae. ..according to the us research institute the combating terrorism center. let s speak to our security correspondent frank gardner. first of all let s talk about who the houthis are. i explained it as best i could but there is a lot more going on in terms of how what is happening in yemen is viewed globally as a proxy war between iran and saudi arabia. and saudi arabia. yeah, although there has been and saudi arabia. yeah, although there has been quite and saudi arabia. yeah, although there has been quite a and saudi arabia. yeah, although there has been quite a delicate i there has been quite a delicate truce that seems to be holding, which is why the saudis don t want to get involved in this at all, they are keeping their heads down, the saudi foreign minister calling for restraint. the saudis got themselves into a royal mess in yemen. they