Our colleague Said Shehata from BBC Arabic has just been sharing his assessment of the most recent US-UK strikes in Yemen.

He says the most recent strikes in Yemen "will not make a difference" because it does not deter the Houthis.

Shehata explains that "unfortunately, those strikes don't achieve the purpose so far" as companies that used to conduct seaborne trade via the Red Sea are still opting to take a much longer, and costly, route around southern Africa.

The Houthis, Shehata explains, will continue to retaliate to American strikes and put pressure on the international community to stop the war in Gaza.

Retired Colonel Joe Buccino, who was once a spokesperson for US Central Command, tells the BBC what he thinks about the latest strikes on Iran-backed groups in the Middle East.

Image source, .

The Houthis are an Iran-backed rebel group which considers Israel an enemy and have launched attacks on commercial ships. They say these attacks are in response to the war in Gaza.

Major shipping companies have stopped using the Red Sea route since then.

Almost 15% of global seaborne trade usually passes through the Red Sea, and companies are instead opting to take a much longer route around southern Africa.

In UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's statement on 12 January, which announced the UK's first strikes against the Houthis, he cited the group's "dangerous and destabilising attacks". Sunak said these attacks threaten lives and are "causing major disruption to a vital trade route and driving up commodity prices".

An anti-ship missile has been destroyed in Yemen, says US Central Command (Centcom).

In a post on social media,, external Centcom says its forces "conducted a strike in self-defence against a Houthi anti-ship cruise missile".

The missile in question, according to the US military, was prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea and US forces "determined it presented an imminent threat to US Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region".

Lyse Doucet
Chief international correspondent

Image source, AFP

When it comes to making the Houthis’ case to the world, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi has long been the movement’s most prominent public face - the spin doctor with a swagger and a swift quip.

Asked by a BBC Arabic presenter about their connection to events happening in Gaza which was “miles and miles away,” he shot back, querying whether Biden and Netanyahu “lived in the same flat” and if the French president “also lived on the same floor”.

He once showed up on a bicycle when meeting a European diplomat in the capital Sana’a.

When we went to interview him, he met us in the empty international airport which was shutdown by the Saudi-led coalition when it unleashed war on the Houthis in 2015.

He’s an influential figure, focused on the Houthis' internal governance, overseeing local supervisors who are the “eyes and ears” of the movement.

But the movement’s greatest power lies with the top leader who never speaks to the media and rarely appears in public.

The reclusive Abdul Malik al-Houthi is the driving force behind their growing military might. In recent years, foreign envoys granted a rare audience only saw him on a screen.

Former US President Donald Trump has been silent on the US strikes so far. On social media he has kept up attacks on his last remaining Republican White House rival, Nikki Haley, who served under him as UN ambassador.

As Politico puts it, “Trump seems caught between his instincts to sound tougher than Biden and his instincts to simply pull out of the region”.

Republican criticism of US President Joe Biden has so far focused on the delay in US retaliation, and that US forces had "telegraphed" their plans to Iran in advance.

During his presidency, Trump ordered the assassination of IRGC general Qasem Soleimani.

He also ordered US troops to withdraw from northern Syria.

The Biden White House has signalled no such plans to reduce the US footprint in the region, and in March, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted down a bill that would have directed that troops pull out of Syria.

For those of you just joining us, here's a summary of the main developments:

The UK and US militaries launched a third round of joint strikes on the Houthis in Yemen in response to the Iran-aligned group's ongoing attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea.

The US and UK were supported by forces from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.

The strikes were carried out on 36 targets in 13 locations within Yemen, according to a joint statement, and targeted "deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defence systems, and radars".

They also included coastal drone control centres, according to the anti-Houthi coalition.

UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the latest strikes were "not an escalation".

It comes just one day after the US struck 85 targets in Syria and Iraq in response to last Sunday's deadly drone attack on a US military base in Jordan which killed three soldiers.

Frank Gardner
BBC News, Security Correspondent

Image source, Reuters

The Houthis are a minority group of Yemenis from the mountainous north-west of the country.

They take their name from their movement's founder, Hussein Al-Houthi.

They fought several wars against Yemen's strongman ruler in the early 2000s and then, after he was deposed by the Arab Spring protests, they marched down to the capital, Sana'a, and seized power in 2014.

The previously deposed President Saleh, still bitter at being ousted, put his loyal Republican Guard at their disposal, enabling them to take over 80% of Yemen's population.

The Houthis then promptly assassinated him.

Since the Houthis seized power, Yemen, already the poorest Arab nation, has been torn apart by a catastrophic civil war.

An estimated 150,000 people have been killed, along with millions made dependent on food aid.

The Houthis - most of whom follow the Zaidi branch of Shia Islam in Sunni-majority Yemen - represent only around 15% of Yemenis yet they consider themselves the rightful rulers.

So how do they differ from the rest of the population?

"They are generally more war-like, violent and cruel," says Edmund Fitton-Brown, who was UK ambassador to Yemen from 2015-17.

Read in full here.

The latest strikes by the US and UK against Houthis in Yemen join US attacks on targets in Syria and Iraq on Friday.

The BBC's Orla Guerin says the action is a "sign of the times in the Middle East", but despite the risk of making an unstable worse, the strikes appear to have not shifted the desire of the US or Iran to ramp up military confrontation.

David Schenker, former US assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, has just been speaking to the BBC following the latest wave of strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.

The action, carried out by the US and the UK alongside their allies, has been described by Washington and London as a way to "degrade" the group's capabilities to attack shipping vessels in the Red Sea.

Addressing the current landscape in the region, Schenker says shipping traffic in the Suez Canal is "down 50%".

"Something has to be done about the Houthis," he warns, adding that "this is just a start, quite frankly".

But Schenker adds the US "can't just go after the proxies and not after the patron", referring to Iran.

So far, the US has targeted militias and groups affiliated to Iran in Syria, Iraq and Yemen - but not in Iran's territory.

We're now hearing a bit more from US Central Command (Centcom).

Saturday's strikes, according to Centcom, were part of "ongoing international efforts to respond to increased Iranian-backed Houthi destabilising and illegal activities in the region".

In a statement on social media, Centcom added that the strikes "intended to degrade Houthi capabilities" as the group continues "their reckless and unlawful attacks on US and UK ships as well as international commercial shipping in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden".

Underground storage facilities, command and control missile systems and helicopters were among the Houthi targets struck during the joint operation.

The UK Ministry of Defence has just shared photos showing Typhoon planes that participated in the latest strikes as they were taking off from an airbase in Cyprus.

Image source, Ministry of Defence

Image source, Ministry of Defence

Image source, Ministry of Defence

And US Central Command released its own images of American forces participating in the strikes.

The photos appear to show a ship firing and jets taking off from a US aircraft carrier.

Image source, Centcom

Image source, Centcom

Image source, Centcom

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

We're now hearing from British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, who says the latest strikes in Yemen are "not an escalation".

Shapps says the Houthis' attacks on commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea are "illegal and unacceptable".

"It is our duty to protect innocent lives and preserve freedom of navigation," the defence secretary adds, justifying the operation as "proportionate and targeted against Houthi military targets in Yemen".

Shapps says he is confident the latest strikes - the third wave of joint UK-US military action - have "further degraded the Houthis' capabilities".

Image source, UK MoD

We're now hearing from the UK Ministry of Defence, which just confirmed that Typhoon jets dropping Paveway IV precision guided bombs struck three targets in Yemen.

The targets were "identified by careful intelligence analysis", the statement says.

They included two "drone ground control stations" operating on Yemen's west coast.

One station in As Alif had been used to control Houthi drones, "both attack and reconnaissance types, launched from further inland, operating over the sea against international shipping".

Another drone station at Al Munirah "provided direct control of reconnaissance and attack drones" and was in a location that allowed it to "maintain the line of sight" that weapons require to target ships.

"A significant" number of targets were also struck in Bani, including a group of facilities that were previously hit by UK forces on 11 January.

"Since then a further set of buildings at the site had been positively confirmed as involved in the Houthi drone and missile operations and were duly targeted on this occasion," the statement says.

Image source, Getty Images

The US and UK have just carried out strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, the latest of several strikes in recent weeks.

The Houthis are an Iran-backed group which considers Israel an enemy.

In response to the war in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis started firing drones and missiles towards Israel. Most have been intercepted.

The Houthis say they are targeting ships in the Red Sea which are Israeli-owned, flagged or operated, or which are heading to Israeli ports. However, many of the vessels which have been attacked have no connection with Israel.

US-led naval forces have thwarted many of the attacks.

Major shipping companies have stopped using the Red Sea - through which almost 15% of global seaborne trade usually passes - and are using a much longer route around southern Africa instead.

Read in full here.

Image source, Getty Images

We've just heard from US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III about the latest strikes in Yemen.

"This collective action sends a clear message to the Houthis that they will continue to bear further consequences if they do not end their illegal attacks on international shipping and naval vessels," Austin III said in a new statement.

"We will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world's most critical waterways."

Image source, EPA

More now from the Pentagon, which just confirmed the newest round of strikes against 36 targets across 13 locations in Yemen.

A statement just released by US Central Command says the joint operation on Saturday was launched "at the direction of their respective governments, the militaries of the United States and United Kingdom, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand".

"These precision strikes are intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade, and the lives of innocent mariners, and are in response to a series of illegal, dangerous, and destabilising Houthi actions," the statement continues.

We've just heard from the Pentagon, confirming there were strikes against 36 Houthi targets across 13 locations in Yemen.

The statement says these new strikes hit sites associated with the Houthis' "deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defence systems, and radars".

We will bring you more details from the statement shortly.

The Houthis in Yemen are part of a group which is known as Iran's "axis of resistance".

The core of the "axis of resistance" is made up of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis in Yemen and assorted Iraqi militias that are armed and trained by Iran. The Iranians have also supported Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza.

The US and many other countries have designated Hezbollah, Hamas, PIJ and the Houthis as terrorist organisations.

Members of these armed groups receive weapons and funding from Iran and are under the influence of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, though they often operate outside of his chain of command.