Les houthistes, des rebelles yéménites devenus d’incontournables acteurs du Moyen-Orient

LE MONDE : ENQUÊTE Le mouvement insurrectionnel – qui contrôle désormais la portion la plus peuplée du pays – s’est imposé dans le jeu régional à la faveur de la guerre opposant Israël au Hamas. Les attaques de navires en mer Rouge, qui menacent cet axe mondial du commerce et défient les Etats-Unis, ont révélé son pouvoir de nuisance.

En lançant son offensive meurtrière sur Gaza après les massacres perpétrés par le Hamas, le 7 octobre 2023, Israël redoutait l’ouverture d’un second front, au nord, sur un théâtre d’opérations familier et prompt à s’enflammer. Depuis les violents affrontements de l’été 2006 opposant l’armée israélienne aux combattants chiites du Hezbollah libanais, les escarmouches entre ces deux ennemis historiques n’ont jamais cessé autour de la « ligne bleue » qui sépare le Liban et l’Etat hébreu – deux pays officiellement en guerre depuis 1948. » | Par Gilles Paris et Madjid Zerrouky | dimanche 21 janvier 2024 [€]

Peter Hitchens: Britain Is No Longer a Great Power

Jan 15, 2024 | “British politicians seem to think that we’re still the great power, when we’re not.” Peter Hitchens discusses UK strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen and the Conservative Party’s electoral prospects on TimesRadio.

Houthis Strike a Russian Oil Ship

Jan 13, 2024 | “The Houthis are doing it in part to push their own domestic and regional interests.” Houthis are striking “random” ships to give themselves a stronger position in the war in Yemen, Gregg Carlstrom tells Times Radio.

Is the Economy Facing Another Energy Price Shock?

BBC: Both Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden cited the global economic impact of Houthi attacks on Red Sea cargo ships in overnight statements as the reasoning behind military action.

The Treasury has modelled scenarios suggesting that disruption in the Red Sea could further shrink the UK economy, risking a recession.

The main fear in the Treasury's analyses is of a rise of at least $10 per barrel in the international price of crude oil and a 25% increase in the price of natural gas.

Rises such as these have not actually materialised, so far, mainly because of the actions of Saudi Arabia - the major oil producing nation - in soothing global energy markets with price cuts.

The US and UK will hope that their overnight strikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels will help reverse widespread delays and disruption to Red Sea trading routes, by re-establishing safe passage through the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait into the Suez Canal.

But, on the other hand, there is now also a clear pathway of escalation to a wider Middle East conflict. » | Faisal Islam, Economics editor | Friday, January 12, 2024

Houthi Attacks Mark the Beginning of Conflict over the Red Sea and the Gulf

Jan 12, 2024 | “It's very clear that they are part of a much wider strategy from Iran to sow chaos in the near abroad.” Houthi attacks mark the “beginning of a protracted conflict over the Red Sea and the Gulf”, says Politico’s correspondent Gabriel Gavin.

After US and UK Strikes against Houthis – Fears of Escalation in Middle East Become Real | DW News

Jan 12, 2024 | The United States and Britain have carried out military strikes against targets in Yemen in retaliation for Houthi rebel attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. The Houthis and the group's backer Iran have condemned the strikes. The US and the UK say the action is aimed at protecting international trade routes. For more on this, we talk to Frank Ledwidge. He's a senior lecturer in strategic studies at Portsmouth University and a former British military intelligence officer. And we talk to Elisabeth Kendall. She is a Middle East expert at Girton College, part of the University of Cambridge.

U.S. Missiles Strike Targets in Yemen Linked to the Houthi Militia

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The American-led strikes came in response to more than two dozen Houthi drone and missile attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea since the Israel-Hamas war began.

The United States and five of its allies on Thursday carried out military strikes against more than a dozen targets in Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, in an expansion of the war in the Middle East that the Biden administration had sought to avoid for the past three months.

The American-led air and naval strikes came in response to more than two dozen Houthi drone and missile attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea since November, and after warnings to the Houthis in the past week from the Biden administration and several international allies of serious consequences if the salvos did not stop.

On Thursday night, President Biden called the strikes a “clear message that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most critical commercial routes.”

In a statement, he warned: “I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary.” » | Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper, Reporting from Washington | Thursday, January 11, 2024

Les Etats-Unis et le Royaume-Uni tentent d’enrayer les attaques des houthistes en mer Rouge en menant des frappes contre leurs installations au Yémen : L’opération conduite dans la nuit du jeudi 11 au vendredi 12 janvier intervient après une trentaine d’attaques de navires commerciaux par les rebelles yéménites, qui prétendent agir par solidarité avec les Palestiniens de Gaza. » [€]

Biden meldet Militärschlag gegen Huthi-Rebellen: Die Amerikaner und ihre Verbündeten haben laut US-Regierung Stellungen der Huthi-Rebellen im Jemen angegriffen. Präsident Biden spricht von einer „direkten Reaktion auf die beispiellosen Angriffe der Huthi auf die internationale Schifffahrt“. »

Iranian Navy Says It Seized an Oil Tanker Off the Coast of Oman: The same vessel was involved last year in the U.S. government seizure of Iranian oil that was being transported in violation of American sanctions. »

Iran Looks to Houthi Proxies to Escalate Fight With Israel

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The Iranian-backed militia in Yemen has launched drone and missile attacks on Israeli and American targets. American officials fear the group could go too far and incite a wider war.

Houthi fighters who have volunteered to fight in Gaza against Israel during a parade this month in Sana, Yemen. | Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
The Houthis, Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen who have launched recent drone and missile attacks on Israeli and American targets, are emerging as an unpredictable and dangerous wild card in the Middle East — the proxies that Iran considers most suited to widening the war with Israel.

Analysts close to the Iranian government said the Houthis’ base in Yemen makes them ideally positioned to escalate fighting in the region, in the hopes of pressuring Israel to end its war with Hamas in Gaza.

The analysts’ assessment tracks with descriptions of a plan by Iran and its network of militias to increase attacks on Israeli and American targets in the region, according to two Iranians affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps who were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Houthis, the analysts said, are Iran’s chosen proxies because from Yemen they are both close enough to the Red Sea’s strategic waterways to disrupt global shipping, and far enough from Israel to make retaliatory strikes difficult. Unlike Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group that has struck Israel from Lebanon, the Houthis are not beholden to domestic political dynamics — making them effectively accountable to no one. » | Farnaz Fassihi, Ronen Bergman and Eric Schmitt | Friday, December 8, 2023

Israel Rushes Missile Boats to Red Sea after Yemen’s Houthis Declare War

THE TELEGRAPH: Iran-backed movement says it has launched three attacks towards Israel since Oct 7 and vows more ‘to help Palestinians to victory’

Israel deployed warships to the Red Sea on Wednesday after Yemen’s Houthis declared war and launched a ballistic missile at an Israeli city.

Images released by the Israeli military showed Sa’ar-class corvettes patrolling near Eilat port in the Red Sea, which Israel sees as a new front as its war in Gaza draws retaliation from Iran-backed forces elsewhere in the region.

On Tuesday, the Houthis said they had launched three drone and missile attacks towards Israel since the start of the Hamas-Israel war on Oct 7. They vowed there would be more such attacks “to help the Palestinians to victory”.

The Israeli military used its Arrow missile defence system for the first time to intercept an “aerial threat” over the Red Sea, believed to have been a ballistic missile. » | Telegraph’s Foreign Staff | Wednesday, November 1, 2023

US Troops in Saudi Arabia Defend Hegemony, Not Security

Pushback with Aaron Maté

Is Saudi Arabia More Vulnerable to Houthi Attacks from Yemen? | Inside Story

Three years after launching air strikes in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is under attack. Houthi rebels targeted Riyadh and three other Saudi cities as they step up their response to the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman defends his country's military intervention in the conflict in 2015, saying "the options are between bad and worse".

After three years the situation could not be any worse. About 10,000 killed in the fighting, thousands more dead from the worst recorded outbreak of cholera, and millions facing famine.

The UN calls Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. And the complex relationships and divisions of all those involved in the conflict make any hope of a settlement even more remote.

Presenter: Elizabeth Puranam | Guests: Mohammed Jumeh, columnist and editor at the Al Quds newspaper; Adam Baron, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations; Suze van Meegen, protection and advocacy adviser at the Norwegian Refugee Council

British MP Galloway Slams Anti-Houthi Campaign on Iran TV: The Saudis Are Treacherous Snakes (March 27, 2015)