Regional and international stakeholders need to define a new strategy to contain the increasingly well-armed Houthi militia, Yemen’s vice-president said on Tuesday September 24th.
Aidarous al-Zubaidi, Yemen’s vice president and head of the Southern Transitional Council, told Reuters in an interview that “we think that it’s the moment that we join all the stakeholders, local, regional, and also international, to come together to find a strategy, a new strategy to tackle them,”
Meanwhile, Russia could supply Houthis with sophisticated anti-ship missiles, according to a Reuters report.
Iran has been acting as the middleman in ongoing secret talks between Russia and Yemen’s Houthi army to transfer anti-ship missiles to the military operation, the report claimed, citing three Western and regional sources.
Seven sources said that Russia has yet to decide to transfer the Yakhont missiles – also known as P-800 Oniks – to the Houthis. If they did the militia would have missiles which could strike commercial vessels in the Red Sea more accurately.
The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Russia was considering sending the missiles, but this is the first time that Iran’s role as an intermediary has been reported.