The US and Britain have launched a fresh wave of strikes against 36 Houthi targets in Yemen.
The further wave of assaults on 13 locations are designed to further disable Iran-backed groups that have attacked American and international interests in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, according to US officials.
That assault targeted other Tehran-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for the drone strike on Jordan that killed three US troops last weekend.
US strikes on 10 Houthi targets involved F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D Eisenhower aircraft carrier and American warships firing Tomahawk missiles from the Red Sea, US officials said.
According to officials, the USS Gravely and the USS Carney, both US navy destroyers, launched the missiles.
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Moment RAF aircraft take off
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said that RAF Typhoon FGR4s, supported by Voyager tankers, joined US forces in “further deliberate strikes against Houthi locations in Yemen”.
Saturday’s strikes marked the third time the US and Britain had conducted a large, joint operation to strike Houthi weapon launchers, radar sites and drones.
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Washington had warned that its response after the soldiers’ deaths at the Tower 22 base in Jordan would not be limited to one night, one target or one group.
But the Houthis have been conducting almost daily missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and they have made clear that they have no intention of scaling back their campaign.
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the military action, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand, “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”.
He added: “We will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways.”
UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the move was “not an escalation” adding that: “The Houthis’ attacks on commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea are illegal and unacceptable and it is our duty to protect innocent lives and preserve freedom of navigation.
“That is why the Royal Air Force engaged in a third wave of proportionate and targeted strikes against Houthi military targets in Yemen.
“We acted alongside our US allies, with the support of many international partners, in self-defence and in accordance with international law.”
The US defence department said the strikes targeted sites associated with the Houthis’ deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defence systems and radars.
On Friday, the US destroyer Laboon and F/A-18s from the Eisenhower shot down seven drones fired from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen into the Red Sea.
The same day, the destroyer Carney shot down a drone fired in the Gulf of Aden and US forces took out four more drones that were prepared to launch.
Hours before the latest joint operation, the US took another self-defence strike on a site in Yemen, destroying six anti-ship cruise missiles, as it has repeatedly when it has detected a missile or drone ready to launch.
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‘There will be retaliation’
Meanwhile, speaking to Sky News, the leader of an influential Iraqi militia group said it does “not accept or acquiesce to the violation of Iraqi sovereignty”.
Dr Firas al Yasser from the Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba group warned: “We have said it before in a clear and direct way, we don’t accept threats.
“At the moment, if any members of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq are targeted, or any jihadi or resistance fighter from any part of the resistance forces are targeted, there will be retaliation from us.”
From humble origins, he left Georgia to accumulate immense wealth in Russia through close ties with Putin’s chosen few, the kleptocratic elites who have helped themselves to the country’s riches in return for complete loyalty to the Kremlin.
He is said to be worth at least $5bn (£3.98bn), a third of his country’s GDP.
After returning to Georgia, he acquired enormous influence in his homeland.
He says he has withdrawn from frontline politics but, as chairman of the Georgian Dream party, Ivanishvili is the power behind the throne, an eminence grise, say his critics, operating from the shadows as the puppet master of the country’s power struggles.
He chooses the country’s prime ministers. Three of the last four have been former managers of his companies.
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Georgia’s interior minister is a former bodyguard of Ivanishvili, its former health minister was his wife’s dentist, an education minister one of his children’s maths tutors. The list goes on.
To many, Ivanishvili’s lifestyle might sound more James Bond villain than tycoon.
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Police ‘stamping’ on Georgia protesters
In the hills overlooking the capital Tbilisi, he has a futuristic mansion said to have a shark-infested pool.
He collects other exotic animals, including kangaroos and lemurs, and has a penchant for exotic trees – uprooting rare 135-year-old specimens with huge controversy and hauling them off to his tree park.
But it’s his alleged ties with Russiathat are the most controversial and murky.
Many Georgians say they are sceptical of his claims to have sold his businesses and ended his investments in Russia years ago.
Ivanishvili and his Georgian Dream party are trying to push through parliament a new law that has caused the biggest unrest in Georgia in years.
The ‘foreign agent’ bill, as it’s known, would give the government more control over the media and human rights organisations. It is modelled on laws Putin has used to tighten his own authoritarian grip on Russia.
Tens of thousands of Georgians have demonstrated against the bill.
With its final reading due this week, the unrest is heading for a crunch point.
Protesters are determined to thwart the man they see as Putin’s puppet. They believe if he prevails he will end their dream of closer ties with Europe and eventual membership of the European Union.
At stake is both Georgia’s national identity and Vladimir Putin’s ability to maintain control and influence in this former Soviet republic.
Police in Amsterdam have moved in to end a pro-Palestinian protest after demonstrators occupied university buildings.
Footage from the Dutch capital showed a line of police in riot gear holding back demonstrators, some of whom could be seen making peace signs with their hands while others held signs.
Students could be heard chanting: “We are peaceful, what are you?” and “shame on you” in local media footage.
Earlier, a protest group said it had occupied university buildings in Amsterdam as well as in the cities of Groningen and Eindhoven.
In a post on social media site X, Amsterdam police said the university had filed a report against the protesters for acts of vandalism.
A spokesperson for the University of Amsterdam said protesters had occupied what is known as the ABC building, causing some “destruction”.
It estimated that around a thousand students and employees had taken part in a “national walkout” during which they walked out of a lecture hall at 11 o’clock and gathered on the Roeterseiland campus.
The university said it had advised people not affiliated with the protest to leave the building.
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Students in the US and Europe have been holding mostly peaceful demonstrations calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire in Gaza and for schools to cut financial ties with companies they say are profiting from the oppression of Palestinians.
Dutch students have been protesting since last Monday and had previously clashed with police as they used railings and furniture to build barricades in the city.
While in the UK, students at Cambridge and Oxford have set up encampments outside King’s College the Pitt Rivers Museum respectively.
Kendall Gardner, a Jewish student at Oxford University,told Sky News last week that she was “really inspired by the events that have been happening across the world”.
“The US started a global chain of student activism for Palestine,” she said.
“We have six demands for this protest – the top line is to demand closure of all university-wide financial assets that benefit Israel.
Tens of thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets in Tbilisi – protesting against a proposed law threatening press and civic freedoms.
The “foreign agents” bill has sparked a political crisis amid concerns it is modelled on laws used by Vladimir Putin to crack down on the media in Russia – and if passed, would make it harder for Georgia to join the EU.
Sky’s international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn is in Tbilisi:
The Georgian security forces moved in shortly after dawn this morning. Phalanxes of masked men sweeping through streets and parks outside parliament.
They kettled protesters with force. We were caught in the crush as they squeezed the crowd.
A woman screamed as she was pinned to a post by the press of people.
Crowds had ringed the parliament building all night – intent on stopping MPs from voting on laws that demonstrators believe put Georgia on the path to dictatorship, and back in the embrace of Moscow.
“They want to drag us back to autocracy, to the country they occupied us for too many years,” one protester told Sky News.
The police succeeded in clearing one entrance to parliament.
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Flank after flank of interior ministry security forces backed by helmeted riot police and water cannon trucks are now in a tense standoff with a multi-coloured sea of protesters on the corner of the parliament building.
The government was forced to shelve the law last year in the face of bitter opposition but the Georgian Dream ruling party, regarded by many as pro-Russian, is determined to see it passed.