Category: The Gulf

The Houthis are again ‘specially designated global terrorists.’ Here’s what that means. 

It’s a title fight. On Wednesday, the United States designated the Yemen-based Houthi rebels, also called Ansar Allah, as a specially designated global terrorist (SDGT) group. Recent attacks by the Iran-backed group on Red Sea shipping “fit the textbook definition of terrorism,” explained National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The Biden administration’s label, which follows US

Will US-UK strikes against the Houthis halt their Red Sea aggression?

JUST IN They’re seeing red. On Thursday, the United States and the United Kingdom carried out air and missile strikes in Yemen after weeks of attacks by the Houthis on shipping vessels in the Red Sea that had disrupted global commerce. Will these strikes deter the Iranian proxy group from further attacks? Will they embroil

Can Turkey help resolve the Israel-Hamas war?

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has emerged as one of the world’s harshest critics of Israel’s response to Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack. Yet Erdoğan did aspire to secure a role for Turkey in de-escalating the conflict and to serve as a “guarantor” of a future ceasefire and peace agreement. Despite Erdoğan’s change in tone

Dispatch from Abu Dhabi: Do the Israelis know about the Basus War?

ABU DHABI—My route out of Israel in the days after Hamas’s terrorist attack drew the country into war took me from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to Abu Dhabi, where I had the opportunity last week to speak with senior government officials about the unfolding war. (In the interest of disclosure: The Emirati government is a

Can Arab League states ‘get something’ for readmitting Assad?

As the Arab League began its thirty-second meeting on Friday in Jeddah, the summit’s agenda was as busy as ever. Center to the scene, however, was Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s return to Syria’s seat at the Arab League after being shunned for twelve years for turning his country’s 2011 revolution into the region’s most brutal