HibeeJibee Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 Looks like the firing is going to start imminently, in response to increased Iranian-backed boardings of and attacks on Suez Canal-bound shipping in the straits, from the Yemen. Royal Navy's presence in the area seemingly comprises the heavy destroyer Diamond and the frigate Lancaster with Richmond en route plus potentially a submarine; besides a US force with an aircraft carrier, and frigates from France + Italy. Will this intervention restrain the assaults and keep the seaway open sufficiently? Can wider escalation be avoided? Half-a-century on: what to do about the Barren Rocks of Aden today? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cardle is Magic Posted January 11 Popular Post Share Posted January 11 (edited) Amazing that UK can’t even bring themselves to call for a ceasefire in Gaza but a few boats get hijacked and they’re all ready for war. Just a few months out from a general election as well - such coincidental timing. Edited January 11 by Cardle is Magic 21 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGoon Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Yikes 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 Looks like ourselves and the Americans have just begun striking the Yemeni's capital and coastal cities: cruise missiles and drones from jets, warships and subs. So it's a shooting war now sadly. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orfc Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Being an Iranian catspaw isn't the key to a long and happy life 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael W Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 57 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said: Will this intervention restrain the assaults and keep the seaway open sufficiently? Can wider escalation be avoided? Not in the meantime. Risk of being caught in crossfire and/or deliberately targeted to force the depletion of missle stocks (which are expensive). The danger level has increased. As for wider escalation, who knows. Depends how much Iran is happy for the Houthis to take the hit here and whether it'll back them with anything other than weapons. The Saudis will likely be more than happy someone else is having a go at the Houthis, but probably won't say anything on the subject, in case they are viewed as pro-Israel as it's being seen through the Israel/Palestine prism. That the Houthis are attacking vessels that have nothing to do with Israel is another matter entirely. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen Archer (Raconteur) Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 For this to happen, fly over permissions must have been granted by various countries. Source, BBC. Quote The UK's strikes were carried out by jets flying from Akrotiri in Cyprus. Four RAF Typhoon jets conducted air strikes on two Houthi targets using Paveway bombs. Article share tools 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RH33 Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Has Saudi not been bombing the shit out Yeman for last few years? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnydun Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 My thoughts from the Politics thread... 3 hours ago, johnnydun said: Really fucks me off when dickheads talk about carpet bombing a country they have never set foot in and know f**k all about. The Yemeni people have been suffering at the hands of the Saudis for years but the US and UK have turned a blind eye, yet as soon as boats start getting stopped they are all for flattening the place. It's fuckin vile. Instead of mediation, peace talks and aid, bomb the f**k out of Yemen. Heaven forbid they should temporarily send ships filled with Chinese tat and Oil that nobody desperately needs round the Horn of Africa Instead. Jumped at the first chance they got to be Saudi's puppets. Blackford can f**k off too. Threat to shipping? f**k off you c**t, no more than bad weather is a threat to shipping. Did they hang the Captain of the Ever Given in 2021 and assassinate their family? 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ned Nederlander Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 I read this expecting to see comments from folk similarly worried about us f'cking around out there but it turned out to be full of monobrows nursing wee semis: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparky88 Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Wonder how many deaths of innocent civilians is worth a 'threat to shipping'. Blackford's pish about the need to bring peace to Gaza when the same folk pounding Yemen are also supplying weapons to the Israelis to pound hospitals is rather depressing. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freedom Farter Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 (edited) Aye, bad tweet from Blackford. Calling the Houthis terrorists pays far too much respect to Saudi sensibilities. Four in five Yemenis live under Houthi governance and while that government is supported by Iran its not propped up by Iran. It has legitimate support among that 80% of Yemenis it governs. The remaining Yemenis live under a coalition brought together by Saudi consisting of the pre-revolution military dictators and salafist tribal leaders. The head of that coalition, the supposed president of Yemen, of course lives in Saudi. Separate point here, this is the Human Development Index. If we're to use it as a gauge, Yemen is the world's ninth poorest nation: Edited January 12 by Freedom Farter 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Waldo Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 5 hours ago, johnnydun said: My thoughts from the Politics thread... It's fuckin vile. Instead of mediation, peace talks and aid, bomb the f**k out of Yemen. Heaven forbid they should temporarily send ships filled with Chinese tat and Oil that nobody desperately needs round the Horn of Africa Instead. Jumped at the first chance they got to be Saudi's puppets. Blackford can f**k off too. Threat to shipping? f**k off you c**t, no more than bad weather is a threat to shipping. Did they hang the Captain of the Ever Given in 2021 and assassinate their family? You want America to have mediation and peace talks with the people whose official slogan is "God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam."? A people who are dabbling in slavery and firing weapons at civilians simply because they are working on ships. Aye, good luck with that! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnydun Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 17 minutes ago, Mr Waldo said: You want America to have mediation and peace talks with the people whose official slogan is "God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam."? A people who are dabbling in slavery and firing weapons at civilians simply because they are working on ships. Aye, good luck with that! No, you're right, what I really want is hundreds of already starving people blown to bits by nightly carpet bombing. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Empty It Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 The gammons will be delighted, they've not had a good GeeBee conflict to get hard about for a while. Again America says jump and Britain says how high, spineless wee country that'll do anything its trigger happy overlords say. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnydun Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 3 minutes ago, Empty It said: The gammons will be delighted, they've not had a good GeeBee conflict to get hard about for a while. Again America says jump and Britain says how high, spineless wee country that'll do anything its trigger happy overlords say. I guess the guys at Fujitsu systems need one last pay day operating our military systems. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freedom Farter Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 32 minutes ago, Mr Waldo said: You want America to have mediation and peace talks with the people whose official slogan is "God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam."? A people who are dabbling in slavery and firing weapons at civilians simply because they are working on ships. Aye, good luck with that! We know that these objections have no bearing on US/UK decisions because if they did, they'd be consistently applied. Saudis did the 9/11 attacks on US civilians. The flag of Saudi is the Islamic creed with a sword. Antisemitism is cosmic in Saudi society. While labour rights will be far from ideal in Yemen, pratices in Saudi and UAE are far closer to slavery. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunning1874 Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Yemen has already been subjected to nine years of war, after a civil war began in 2014 then Saudi Arabia responded to the President being overthrown by leading a coalition (including the US & UK) bombing it day in, day out. The result was the displacement of over 4 million people, famine with hundreds of thousands starving to death and a cholera epidemic affecting millions. After a ceasefire in 2022, they finally got what appeared to be credible steps towards peace in April last year with Iran and Saudi Arabia resuming diplomatic relations after China managed to get them round a table together. This brought with it peace talks between the Saudis and the Houthis, which were ongoing. Enter the US & UK to literally blow it all up again. This has a ridiculously high risk of spiralling out of control. It could kill off the Saudi-Iranian thaw (something Israel and you suspect more hawkish types in the US actively want) which could ignite who knows how many proxy conflicts, it will undoubtedly increase anti-US sentiment across the Middle East and there have already been attacks on US bases in Iraq as a result. The widespread failure of Middle Eastern states to provide any kind of support to Palestine is already deeply unpopular with their populations and this is going to be viewed the same way. This is not about protecting shipping, it's about moving from arming one side of the Israel-Palestine war to actively joining it militarily. Doing it on the day Israel's genocidal intent was clearly laid out before the ICJ is particularly twisted. We're joining the fight over international law and we're doing it on the side of war crimes. 19 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 This was inevitable as the attacks on shipping continued, which makes you wonder how effective the strikes can be on reducing the attacks. The Houthis will have known something like this was coming and have experience of being under attack from the Saudi coalition, although the US and UK will have more firepower than the Saudis and allies have. I don't think there is a significant risk of escalation in this though. The risk would be that Iran becomes directly involved in a conflict with the US, UK and other nations who are supporting this action and that seems highly unlikely. The Iranians know that they aren't in a position to win any sort of conflict like that and would look to avoid it and I don't think that the other coalition countries would want that confrontation either. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEADOWXI Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 The UK/US treatment of Yemen as it has faced the murderous onslaught of a much better western armed neighbour nation (Saudi Arabia), makes the west views on the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza seem even handed fair. This situation is entirely of the making of west backing side and not giving a f**k about right or humanity. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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