Houthis are throttling international trade – but UK and US attacks may only make matters worse
The Houthi attack on an oil tanker off the coast of Yemen is a significant escalation suggesting the British American strategy to deter and degrade the Houthi threat is failing.
Who owns ships is a murky business. The debate about British links with the Marlin Luanda is a bit of a red herring.
The point is the Houthis say they attacked it because they believe it is British owned.
Follow latest: US destroys Houthi anti-ship missile in Yemen
That’s important because this week Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he had authorised another round of airstrikes to send a message to the Houthis: Stop attacking international shipping in the Red Sea.
It was always going to be a gamble. Either that show of force would make the Houthis think twice about what they have to lose from British American attacks destroying their missiles, radar and other assets.
Or it would stir up the Houthi hornet’s nest further and infuriate them, provoking them to do double down and do their worst.
The evidence from last night’s attack points to the latter outcome. The Houthi attacks ups the ante in a number of ways. They are saying ‘we see your airstrikes and we raise our stakes’.
And it’s an escalation in the way they’ve responded too. The oil tanker they’ve attacked was not even in the Red Sea. Its cargo is also important. The international economy is most sensitive to attacks on fuel.
The prime minister and his foreign office officials insist what is happening in the Red Sea has nothing to do with what is happening in Gaza. That is incorrect.
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PM says strikes not linked to Gaza
The Houthis full scale attacks on international shipping began a month after Israel’s offensive there and they say they are acting in solidarity with their Arab brothers and sisters there.
You can question the sincerity of that solidarity. Sceptics would say this is more about winning support on the Arab street. It is certainly achieving its aim.
But the fact remains that the Houthis began this because of the war in Gaza and will most likely end it when it comes to an end.
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As Marco Forgione, the director general of the Export and International Institute told another broadcaster today, one way of ending the attacks on shipping in the Red sea is Israel ending its offensive in Gaza.
Britain and America for now though stand by their support of Israel’s campaign despite the deaths of more than 25000 Palestinians.
The British and American attempts to disconnect their military action against the Houthis from Israel and Gaza is understandable but misleading.
But more worrying for Downing St, the White House and their military planners, their action appears to be backfiring. To make the Red Sea safe again the allies would have to entirely eradicate the Houthi menace to shipping.
Pic: Gwénaëlle Guedez
That is impossible as long as the Houthis retain a capability of missiles and drones however small out in the desert wastes of Yemen.
The allied attacks on the Houthis have made them heroes in Yemen and far beyond. In that sense, instead of being weakening, they have been strengthened by the air strikes.
The Houthis are throttling the jugular of international commerce and lured the British and Americans into striking them in attacks that may only be making matters worse.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
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Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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