The United States on Wednesday put Yemen's Houthis rebels back on its list of specially designated global terrorists, piling financial sanctions on top of American military strikes in the Biden administration's latest attempt to stop the militants' attacks on global shipping. Officials said they would design the financial penalties to minimize harm to Yemen's 32 million people, who are among the world's poorest and hungriest after years of war between the Iran-backed Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition. But aid officials expressed concern. The decision would only add "another level of uncertainty and threat for Yemenis still caught in one of the world's largest humanitarian crises, Oxfam America associate director Scott Paul said. The sanctions that come with the formal designation are meant to sever violent extremist groups from their sources of financing. President Donald Trump's administration designated the Houthis as global terrorists and a foreign terrorist organisation in one
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 Biden administration is expected to soon announce plans to redesignate Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen as a specially designated global terrorists, according to two people familiar with the White House decision and a US official. The move comes as the Houthis have launched dozens of attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. The group says it has attacked the ships in response to Israel's military operations in Gaza in the aftermath of Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel. The three people familiar with the decision were not authorised to comment and requested anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of the expected formal announcement. Secretary of State Antony Blinken delisted the Houthis as both a foreign terrorist organisations and as specially designated global terrorists in February 2021 as the administration sought to make it easier to get humanitarian aid into Yemen. In its waning days, the Trump administration designated the Houthis a Foreign Terrorist Organization
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
A Malta-flagged bulk carrier sustained damage from a missile fired at it in the Red Sea on Tuesday, Greek officials said. Though no group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, suspicion immediately fell on Yemen's Houthi rebels. The Zografia had been heading north to the Suez Canal when it was attacked, the Greek Shipping and Island Policy Ministry said. The ship had no cargo on board and sustained only material damage, the ministry said. The crew includes 20 Ukrainians, three Filipinos and one Georgian. Satellite-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed the Zografia still moving after the attack. The Zografia is managed by a Greek firm. The British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations earlier acknowledged an attack in the vicinity of the Zografia.
Houthi rebels fired a missile, striking a US-owned ship on Monday just off the coast of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden, less than a day after they launched an anti-ship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea. The attack on the Gibraltar Eagle, later claimed by the Houthis, further escalates tensions gripping the Red Sea after American-led strikes on the rebels. The Houthis' attacks have roiled global shipping, amid Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, targeting a crucial corridor linking Asian and Mideast energy and cargo shipments to the Suez Canal onward to Europe. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which oversees Mideast waters, said Monday's attack happened some 110 miles (177 kilometers) miles southeast of Aden. It said the ship's captain reported that the port side of vessel hit from above by a missile". Private security firms Ambrey and Dryad Global told The Associated Press that the vessel was the Eagle Gibraltar, a Marshall Islands-flagged bu
The attack on the Gibraltar Eagle, though not immediately claimed by the Houthis, further escalates tensions gripping the Red Sea after American-led strikes on the rebels
Prior to the U.S. and British strikes on Yemen it had been mostly container ships which were avoiding the Red Sea, with oil tanker traffic largely unchanged in December
Indian exporters apprehend that unless the hostilities in the Red Sea end quickly, the buyers in the United States (US) will prefer East Asian sources
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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
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Sunak noted that Houthis in recent months have conducted a series of "dangerous and destabilising attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea
The saga unfolding in the seas off the coast of Yemen reveals a new facet of asymmetric warfare in today's world
The commerce ministry has called a high-level inter-ministerial meet next week to discuss ways to insulate India's trade from the ongoing problems in the Red Sea, a senior official said on Thursday. Senior officials from five ministries -- external affairs, defence, shipping and finance and commerce -- will participate in the deliberations. The commerce ministry has also set up an internal strategic group, comprising additional secretaries of the ministry, to discuss global issues impacting the country's trade on a daily basis and prepare a strategy to deal with them. "The idea of the inter-ministerial meeting is to see how we can strategise our trade so that it gets least affected in such a situation," the official said. 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. Due to these attacks, the shippers are taking ...
The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution Wednesday condemning and demanding an immediate halt to attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on merchant and commercial vessels in the Red Sea area. The resolution, sponsored by the United States and Japan, says at least two dozen Houthi attacks are impeding global commerce and undermine navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace and security. The vote was 11-0 with four abstentions Russia, China, Algeria and Mozambique. Immediately before the vote, the council rejected three proposed Russian amendments. The Iranian-backed Houthis, who have been engaged in a civil war with Yemen's internationally recognized government since 2014, have said they launched the attacks with the aim of ending Israel's devastating air-and-ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. It was triggered by the Palestinian militant group Hamas' Oct. 7 surprise attack in southern Israel which killed about 1,200 people and led to some 250 others being taken ...
The U.N. Security Council scheduled a vote Wednesday on a resolution that would condemn and demand an immediate halt to attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on merchant and commercial vessels in the Red Sea area. The U.S. draft resolution, obtained late Tuesday by The Associated Press, says at least two dozen Houthi attacks are impeding global commerce and undermine navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace and security. The Iranian-backed Houthis, who have been engaged in a civil war with Yemen's internationally recognized government since 2014, have said they launched the attacks with the aim of ending Israel's devastating air-and-ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. It was triggered by the Palestinian militant group Hamas' Oct. 7 surprise attack in southern Israel which killed about 1,200 people and led to some 250 others being taken hostage. Israel's three-month assault in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 people, two-thirds of them women and children, according to th
Yemen's Houthi rebels unleashed a barrage of drones and missiles targeting shipping in the Red Sea late Tuesday, though it initially appeared no ship was damaged in the attack, authorities said Wednesday. The assault happened off the Yemeni port cities of Hodeida and Mokha, according to the private intelligence firm Ambrey. In the Hodeida incident, Ambrey said ships described over radio seeing missiles and drones, with U.S.-allied warships in the area urging vessels to proceed at maximum speed. Off Mokha, ships saw missiles fired, a drone in the air and small vessels trailing them, Ambrey said early Wednesday. The British military's United Kingdom Marine Trade Operations, which monitors shipping attacks in the region, said it was aware of the Hodeida attack. Coalition forces are responding, no injuries or damage reported, the military said. Vessels are advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity. The Houthis, a Shiite group that's held Yemen's capital since
The Houthi group, which controls parts of Yemen after years of war, in November started attacking international ships traversing the Red Sea, saying it was a response to Israel's assault on Gaza
Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis have been targeting vessels in the Red Sea since November to show their support for the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in its war with Israel