Pirating for Palestine: Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the US/UK response

With the start of war in Gaza, the Houthi movement in Yemen decided that it would also do what it can to provide support to the people of Palestine. 

It decided the best thing that it could do was to attack commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea, of the coast of Yemen.

They have fired missiles, launched drone attacks, attacked ships by sea, boarded ships and taken people hostage. 

On 11 January, the UK and US decided that they should do something and launched a flurry of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. 

This week, we look at the impact and reasoning behind the Houthi attacks on shipping lanes, the retaliatory strikes by the US and UK, and what this means for the ceasefire that only recently halted the war in Yemen. 

To help us understand the Houthi motives in the Red Sea, we're joined by Abdulghani al-Iryani (@AbdulGhani1959), a senior researcher at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies (@SanaaCenter) where he focuses on the peace process, conflict analysis and transformations of the Yemeni state.

And to help us understand what the US hopes to achieve in Yemen, we speak with Gerald M. Feierstein, Distinguished Senior Fellow on US Diplomacy and Director of Arabian Peninsula Affairs at the Middle East Institute (@MiddleEastInst) and former US Ambassador to Yemen.

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This podcast is written and produced by Hugo Goodridge (@hugogoodridge). 

Theme music by Omar al-Fil. 

To get in touch with the producers, follow then tweet us at @TheNewArabVoice.

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