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Iran lawmaker says US will leave region, Israel’s ‘days are numbered’ Iranian lawmaker Ebrahim Azizi has said the United States will eventually leave the Middle East and that Israel’s “days are numbered”, according to remarks reported by Iranian media. Azizi, who heads Iran’s parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said Iran and its neighbours would ultimately remain in the region after the US and Israel were gone. “Ultimately, it is we and our neighbours who remain here, face to face,” he said, adding: “That day will be a day of regret.” The U.S. will inevitably leave this region, and the Zionist regime’s days are numbered. Ultimately, it is we and our neighbors who remain here, face to face. That day will be a day of regret. — ابراهیم عزیزی (@Ebrahimazizi33) September 29, 2026

Red Sea crisis: What missiles and drones do the Houthis have? Submitted by Daniel Tester on Mon, 09/28/2026 - 13:57 The group have taken more territory on the north Yemen coast near the Bab al-Mandeb strait, allowing them to target shipping A security guard in front of a huge image depicting a missile with "Palestine" written on its side in Sanaa, Yemen, in April 2026 (AFP) On A rapid offensive by Yemen’s Houthis has intensified the country’s civil war and caused chaos in global oil markets.  The group, which has controlled much of northern Yemen for over a decade, has seized fresh territory from the pro-government forces and threatened shipping traffic, notably that of Saudi Arabia, in the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the maritime chokepoint linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. With few signs of military formality, the group has often been described in international media as a "ragtag fighting force". But over the past two decades, the Houthis have evolved to use missiles and drones to stage attacks inside Yemen as well as against Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, among others. Much of the group’s arsenal has either been designed or supplied by Iran, which regards the force as a member of its Axis of Resistance, a network of allies that also includes Hamas and Hezbollah. The Houthis have also acquired weapons, including decades-old Soviet-era tanks and helicopters, after victory on the battlefield, and recently seized US-supplied military vehicles captured from retreating Saudi-backed forces. While the Houthis’ stockpile levels are unknown, it is possible to assemble a sense of their firepower and military capabilities. Who are the Houthis and what’s going on in Yemen? Officially called Ansar Allah (“helpers of God”), the Houthis were founded in 1994 by cleric Hussein al-Houthi. Rooted in Zaydi Shiaism, they want more autonomy for northern Yemen, where much of the country’s population is concentrated. Led by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the brother of Hussein, the group fought a series of wars against the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh in the 2000s. Their slogan is “God is the greatest, death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam". The Houthis seized much of Yemen’s northwest, including the capital, Sanaa, between 2014 and 2016 at the height of the Yemeni civil war, principally fought between the Houthis and pro-government forces backed by a Saudi-led international coalition. Since then it has expanded its fighting force from 30,000 in 2015 to an estimated 350,000 by 2024, although counts vary. Since 2023, the Houthis have also attacked over 100 commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, principally targeting those linked to Israel amid the country’s genocide in Gaza as well as from Saudi Arabia. In 2022, the UN brokered an informal ceasefire, which left the Houthis with around 30 percent of the country containing 80 percent of the population, albeit under an ongoing Saudi-led blockade. This period of relative calm collapsed in July after Saudi Arabia bombed Sanaa airport. The Houthis declared a maritime blockade and attacked vessels, mainly Saudi, in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea for the first time in months. Training and tactics While the Houthis are independent of Iran, the Islamic Republic has courted the group as a regional partner since at least the late 2000s. Much of that support was overseen by Qasem Soleimani, leader of Quds Force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ elite overseas wing, until his assassination by the US in January 2020.  The Houthis have also collaborated with other members of the Axis, including Hezbollah, which has met with Houthi leaders in Iraq and Syria, according to UN experts.  Russia has also forged ties with the Houthis since the civil war began, providing it with targeting data and deploying military intelligence officers to Yemen, as Middle East Eye revealed in August 2024.  Moscow’s support has been less than it afforded Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war, but it has still used its UN Security Council veto to stall arms embargoes targeting the group. The Houthis have also used open-source intelligence, including shipping traffic data from maritime intelligence websites, to locate and attack vessels in the Red Sea. In September, Anthropic suggested the group had used its Claude AI model to develop missile navigation systems. Medium-range missiles There are no indications that the Houthis have access to long-range missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, making attacks outside the Middle East and Africa unlikely. But their medium-range missile capability is such that they have hit targets in northern Israel, around 2,000km from Sanaa, including Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport. Medium-range ballistic missiles require complex and costly manufacturing. Analysts say the Houthis are unlikely to have this in Yemen, pointing instead to a likely supply from Tehran. August 2025: People in Tel Aviv run for shelter during a Houthi missile attack after a demonstration (Reuters) “Iranian support has been crucial to the buildup of Houthi military capabilities,” says Fabian Hinz, senior analyst at Conflict Armament Research (CAR). “Tehran has managed to secure a seemingly steady flow of technology to the Houthis and has proven willing to share even some of its most advanced capabilities, such as the Kheibar Shekan.” The Houthis’ armoury includes the Palestine-2 precision-guided series, first promoted by the group in 2024, which they say has a range of 2,150km and uses solid fuel, meaning it can be deployed quickly. The movement also claims the Palestine-2 system is hypersonic and can carry a 500kg warhead, allowing it to manoeuvre while travelling at Mach 5 (more than 6,000 km/h), making it harder to intercept.  But analysts have cast doubt on this, pointing out that only Russia, China, India and the US have hypersonic missiles, and that none of these can fly as fast as the speeds claimed by the Houthis.  The Houthis have also released footage of other medium-range ballistic missiles, including the Hatem-2, which appears to be a variant of Iran’s Kheibar Shekan (“castle-breaker”) system. It has a range of 1,450km, can carry a 500kg warhead, and is among the Islamic Republic’s most advanced systems.  But the scale of the Houthi missile arsenal is unclear, given that its weapons are developed and trafficked covertly.  “They could have one missile or they could have one hundred,” says Wolf-Christian Paes, a global security consultant and senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.  “We really know next to nothing about the numbers of each missile system that they have, until they fire them.”   Short-range ballistic and anti-ship cruise missiles  Ansar Allah also has missiles designed for closer targets, and in 2024 used short-range ballistic missiles against ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. This, analysts suggest, was an unorthodox strategy, given that ballistic missiles follow a parabolic curve and can easily miss a moving target, indicating that the group was running low on other, better-suited armaments. Since then, the Houthis have also used anti-ship cruise missiles, which skim the surface of the water and are more accurate. The vessel Cordelia Moon is hit by a Houthi missile off Hodeidah Port, Yemen in October 2025 (Reuters) Hinz says that some of these missiles are modelled on the Iranian Quds series, which have a range of at least 800km. The Houthis have also used small anti-tank missiles, designed for extremely close ranges, to attack ships in the Bab-el Mandeb strait, which is only 26km wide at its narrowest. Many of these weapons closely match Iranian technology and require complex production facilities that have not been identified in Yemen. Analysts told Middle East Eye that the parts may have been supplied by Tehran and then assembled locally. “In some cases, the Houthis are even receiving missiles in ready-made kits with assembly instructions,” says Rob Hunter-Perkins, head of research at CAR.  Hinz says that the Houthis also inherited older missile models from the Yemeni government when the group captured Sanaa in 2014 and modified some of these systems, albeit “likely with foreign assistance”.  These include ageing Soviet-era air-to-air missiles, which the Houthis converted into surface-to-air missiles, and Soviet-built surface-to-air missiles, retrofitted into anti-ship ballistic missiles. But Hinz says that “it is unclear, however, how much of the Houthi arsenal of these legacy systems remains”. Drones The Houthis inherited a small fleet of mostly Soviet tanks and other armoured vehicles from the Yemeni government when they captured Sanaa in 2014, helping the group gain further territory. But as the civil war progressed, the Saudi-led coalition gained control of the skies and destroyed many of these vehicles, with the group increasingly turning to drones during ground offensives. This screen grab released in August 2026 by the Houthi platform Ansarullah Media Centre shows a drone being launched towards what the Houthis said were Saudi troops (AMC/AFP) “The drones are most effective in the conflict that the Houthis are once again fighting against pro-government infantry forces in Yemen,” says Paes, “especially since that side doesn’t have effective air defences." Some drones, including the Jaffa and Samad models, can travel over 2,000km and have been used to target Israel, although few have been able to evade Israel’s aerial defence systems, including Iron Dome.  Parts of these systems are most likely imported from Iran. But development and assembly may sometimes take place domestically, Hinz says, pointing to recent evidence that the Houthis are developing hydrogen-powered drones, capable of carrying larger payloads for longer distances.  Paes says that ships are less vulnerable to drone attacks, and so serve as "more of a political weapon". “Shipping companies are risk-averse, so drones are a low-cost way for the Houthis to tell ship owners: ‘I can get to you’, even if they are not an effective way to sink the ship or do real damage.”  Guns and small arms Yemen is one of the world’s most heavily-armed societies, home to more guns than people by some estimates (many firearms are not formally registered). Owning a Kalashnikov or handgun is a rite of passage for many Yemeni men, and carrying guns in public is largely unrestricted in Houthi-controlled areas.  Many are supplied by Iran, which arms seizures reveal has also sent machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other small arms, plus ammunition.  Others have circulated in Yemen for decades, with many weapons seized by the Houthis during the height of the Yemen War. These include powerful German-made G3 rifles, which can fire up to 600 rounds per minute and have a range of up to 800 metres with sights.  Aircraft and navy The Houthis have little aerial and naval power. The militia is believed to have only one fighter jet: a US-made Northrop F-5 that hasn’t been seen in over two years and may have been destroyed by missile strikes.  The plane, seized from pro-government Yemeni forces during the civil war, likely dates from a batch of jets sent to the Yemen Arab Republic, as it was then known, in the 1970s by the US.  A Houthi military helicopter hovers over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea as the vessel is boarded by Houthi fighters in November 2023 (Houthi Military/Reuters) Paes says that the Houthis also likely have helicopters, although the number is uncertain and they are likely old. In November 2023, the Houthis used Soviet-era helicopters to hijack Galaxy Leader, a container vessel, in the Red Sea. The Houthis have no traditional navy: their only ships are civilian vessels and several varieties of uncrewed surface vehicles (USV), better known as drone boats. Steered remotely, these are usually small, speedboat-like vessels loaded with explosives to target larger ships.  Paes told Middle East Eye that many USVs are purpose-built in Yemen and include parts, such as boat engines, purchased from China, Japan or Europe with few restrictions. “Drone boats use the same engines that are used on fishing vessels,” he says. “So even if you could in theory restrict these sales, part of the question becomes whether you can justify denying Yemen spare parts for its fishermen because the Houthis could make weapons with those same parts.” Inside Yemen Red Sea crisis: How powerful is the Houthi war machine? Explainers Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0

French police took a top general into custody last week as part of an ongoing probe into potential bribery among the selection committee for the country’s highest decoration, the Legion of Honour. Investigations centre on possible payoffs for awards including expansive meals, holidays and thousands of euros in cash.

In Brazil, more than 158 million voters are being called to the polls on Sunday to elect their next president, as well as new members of Congress and governors. In Rio de Janeiro, local candidates are fighting for one particularly sought-after electorate: the residents of favelas. FRANCE 24’s Jan Onoszko reports from Rocinha, Brazil’s largest favela.

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Oil tycoon Aliko Dangote says he believes the continent will will largely supply its own refined fuel needs by 2030.

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