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Experts to Asharq Al-Awsat: Trump Confronts Houthis with New Reality, Strikes Not Enough to Defeat them 

A plume of smoke billows during a US strike on Yemen's Houthi-held capital Sanaa early on March 16, 2025. (AFP)
A plume of smoke billows during a US strike on Yemen's Houthi-held capital Sanaa early on March 16, 2025. (AFP)
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Experts to Asharq Al-Awsat: Trump Confronts Houthis with New Reality, Strikes Not Enough to Defeat them 

A plume of smoke billows during a US strike on Yemen's Houthi-held capital Sanaa early on March 16, 2025. (AFP)
A plume of smoke billows during a US strike on Yemen's Houthi-held capital Sanaa early on March 16, 2025. (AFP)

Experts said US President Donald Trump has confronted the Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen with a new reality in wake of the airstrikes Washington has launched against them over the weekend.

Trump launched the strikes on Saturday to deter the Houthis from attacking military and commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

The Houthi-run Health Ministry said the overnight US strikes killed at least 53 people, including five women and two children, and wounded almost 100 in the capital of Sanaa and other provinces, including the northern province of Saada, the Houthi stronghold.

The White House announced on Sunday the killing of major Houthi leaderships in the attacks. The Houthis have yet to comment.

The Houthis have repeatedly targeted international shipping in the Red Sea, sinking two vessels, in what they call acts of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel has been at war with Hamas, another Iranian ally.

The attacks stopped when a Israel-Hamas ceasefire took hold in January — a day before Trump took office — but last week the Houthis said they would renew attacks against Israeli vessels after Israel cut off the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza this month.

There have been no Houthi attacks reported since then.

The Houthis on Sunday claimed to have targeted the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group with missiles and a drone.

Washington and the Houthis have vowed escalation.

In the first official remarks by the government since the US strikes, deputy Foreign Minister Mustafa Numan said the militias believed their own delusions that they could confront the entire world.

“Instead, they have brought catastrophe to our country and innocent people,” he lamented to Asharq Al-Awsat, adding that the Houthis cannot wage this “reckless” war.

He recalled the concessions his government had made to end the war and move forward towards peace. The Houthis, however, dismissed all of these efforts, “stalled and rejected Saudi attempts to end the war.”

“The Houthis have crossed all red lines and brazenly defied the international community by promoting attractive slogans that are in effect useless,” Numan said.

Senior Fellow at the Washington Center for Yemeni Studies Sadeq Al-Wesabi criticized the Biden administration for lacking the will to understand the nature of the Houthis and how they operate.

“Trump has now come along to address the Houthis the only way they know well: force,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

President of surprises

Trump took the world by surprise when the announced the launch of the attacks on Saturday.

Trump, in a post on social media, promised to “use overwhelming lethal force” and ordered Iran to “immediately” cut its support.

“Your time is up, and your attacks must stop, starting today. If they don’t, hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before,” he said in a statement on Truth Social, his social media site.

“I have ordered the US military today to launch a decisive and powerful military operation against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen,” he said, adding that Washington “will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective”.

Co-founder of the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies Maged al-Madhaji said the strikes will push the Houthis towards two options, either seek calm and make a weak gesture after the attacks, or resort to major escalation in the Red Sea.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, he said the US strikes marked a major shift in position towards Yemen. He noted that the strikes were preceded by Washington re-designating the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, in a sign that it wanted to inflict damage on the militias, not just contain them.

Motives and messages

The balances of power in the region have been upended since Hamas launched its deadly attack against Israel on October 7, 2023. Iran’s proxies in the region, namely Hezbollah and Hamas, have been severely weakened by Israel and Iran itself was targeted twice by Israeli attacks.

Tehran is being confronted with Trump who is again applying his “maximum pressure campaign.” It is now in an unprecedented and weaker position should it return to negotiations over its nuclear program.

President of Girton College at the University of Cambridge Dr. Elisabeth Kendall said the US strikes are driven by three factors: protecting international shipping, preempting any Houthi attack and intensifying the pressure on Iran.

The Biden administration had frequently said that it wanted to target Houthi capabilities, not its members. But Trump is making it clear that he is targeting both, in a direct message to Iran.

Kendall told Asharq Al-Awsat that the strikes may be a precursor to a direct attack on Iran.

With Hamas and Hezbollah weakened and the ouster of Iran-ally Bashar al-Assad from Syria, the Houthis are Tehran’s only remaining powerful group.

A weakening of the Houthis’ military capabilities will limit Iran’s retaliation options should the US and Israel carry out direct strikes against it to prevent it from pursuing its nuclear ambitions, Kendall explained.

Al-Madhaji noted that the Houthis have limited options in which to respond. They can no longer rely on Hezbollah for backup. The Houthis are effectively the last remaining Iranian proxy that can spark any escalation in the region.

Former Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Mark Kimmitt predicted that the Houthis will retaliate to the strikes by targeting more ships in the Red Sea.

The conflict in Yemen will not end until the Houthis realize that their war has not achieved its goals and that they have run out of ammunition, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Houthi narrative

It has taken the US and western powers ten years to realize that the Houthis do not want peace, said a Yemeni source who chose to remain anonymous.

In 2018, Asharq Al-Awsat reported on how the Saudi-led Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen had waged an unprecedented battle in the southern Red Sea to protect global shipping from the Houthis.

The militias responded by sending messages to the world that they do not harbor hostile intentions, all the while the Coalition was neutralizing booby-trapped Houthi vessels and escorting vessels in the vital waterway.

The coalition had repeatedly warned that the Houthis must not be allowed to acquire sophisticated weapons from Iran. The world ignored the warnings and is now grappling with the Houthi threat to international marine navigation.

The West had long believed the Houthis were a local Yemeni problem and that their influence will remain confined to the country. It believed that the militias were not closely tied to Iran and that they actually wanted to take part in resolving the Yemeni conflict through political means.

This was the narrative that the Houthis and Iran and its “Resistance Axis” sought to promote to the world, said a senior Yemeni official on condition of anonymity. This narrative was dashed as the Houthis escalated their attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and threatened international trade and western interests.

Will strikes succeed?

The question remains: Will the US strikes have any impact on the Houthis who have withstood western strikes before?

In a post on the X platform, Hannah Porter, a senior research officer at ARK Group, said: “I don't know how many times this needs to be repeated, but if airstrikes were enough to stop the Houthis, the group would have been defeated many, many times over the past decade.”

She told Asharq Al-Awsat that there was a very real chance that the Houthis – who thrive in times of war – may not be defeated by military force.

The Trump administration is hoping that its attacks and terrorist designation will lead to the defeat of the Houthis, but the militias have demonstrated over the years their ability to withstand a lot of pressure, she added.

She expected that the Houthis will almost certainly respond to the strikes with escalation, either by attacking ships or American interests or the interests of its allies.

Al-Wesabi stressed that the current US strikes are more intense and accurate than the limited ones launched by the Biden administration.

Their success, however, hinges on whether they take out the top Houthi leaders which would be a blow to the militants’ morale and pave the way for the legitimate government forces, which are on alert, to act.

Failure to take out these leaders will only prolong the conflict, he warned.

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Features

Russia, China Unlikely to Back Iran Against US Military Threats

A man stands by the wreckage of a burnt bus bearing a banner (unseen) that reads "This was one of Tehran’s new buses that was paid for with the money of the people’s taxes,” in Tehran's Sadeghieh Square on January 15, 2026. (AFP)
A man stands by the wreckage of a burnt bus bearing a banner (unseen) that reads "This was one of Tehran’s new buses that was paid for with the money of the people’s taxes,” in Tehran's Sadeghieh Square on January 15, 2026. (AFP)
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Russia, China Unlikely to Back Iran Against US Military Threats

A man stands by the wreckage of a burnt bus bearing a banner (unseen) that reads "This was one of Tehran’s new buses that was paid for with the money of the people’s taxes,” in Tehran's Sadeghieh Square on January 15, 2026. (AFP)
A man stands by the wreckage of a burnt bus bearing a banner (unseen) that reads "This was one of Tehran’s new buses that was paid for with the money of the people’s taxes,” in Tehran's Sadeghieh Square on January 15, 2026. (AFP)

While Russia and China are ready to back protest-rocked Iran under threat by US President Donald Trump, that support would diminish in the face of US military action, experts told AFP.

Iran is a significant ally to the two nuclear powers, providing drones to Russia and oil to China. But analysts told AFP the two superpowers would only offer diplomatic and economic aid to Tehran, to avoid a showdown with Washington.

"China and Russia don't want to go head-to-head with the US over Iran," said Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy expert for the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

Tehran, despite its best efforts over decades, has failed to establish a formal alliance with Moscow and Beijing, she noted.

If the United States carried out strikes on Iran, "both the Chinese and the Russians will prioritize their bilateral relationship with Washington", Geranmayeh said.

China has to maintain a "delicate" rapprochement with the Trump administration, she argued, while Russia wants to keep the United States involved in talks on ending the war in Ukraine.

"They both have much higher priorities than Iran."

- Ukraine before Iran -

Despite their close ties, "Russia-Iranian treaties don't include military support" -- only political, diplomatic and economic aid, Russian analyst Sergei Markov told AFP.

Alexander Gabuev, director of Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said Moscow would do whatever it could "to keep the regime afloat".

But "Russia's options are very limited," he added.

Faced with its own economic crisis, "Russia cannot become a giant market for Iranian products" nor can it provide "a lavish loan", Gabuev said.

Nikita Smagin, a specialist in Russia-Iran relations, said that in the event of US strikes, Russia could do "almost nothing".

"They don't want to risk military confrontation with other great powers like the US -- but at the same time, they're ready to send weaponry to Iran," he said.

"Using Iran as a bargaining asset is a normal thing for Russia," Smagin said of the longer-term strategy, at a time when Moscow is also negotiating with Washington on Ukraine.

Markov agreed. "The Ukrainian crisis is much more important for Russia than the Iranian crisis," he argued.

- Chinese restraint -

China is also ready to help Tehran "economically, technologically, militarily and politically" as it confronts non-military US actions such as trade pressure and cyberattacks, Hua Po, a Beijing-based independent political observer, told AFP.

If the United States launched strikes, China "would strengthen its economic ties with Iran and help it militarize in order to contribute to bogging the United States down in a war in the Middle East," he added.

Until now, China has been cautious and expressed itself "with restraint", weighing the stakes of oil and regional stability, said Iran-China relations researcher Theo Nencini of Sciences Po Grenoble.

"China is benefiting from a weakened Iran, which allows it to secure low-cost oil... and to acquire a sizeable geopolitical partner," he said.

However, he added: "I find it hard to see them engaging in a showdown with the Americans over Iran."

Beijing would likely issue condemnations, but not retaliate, he said.

Hua said the Iran crisis was unlikely to have an impact on China-US relations overall.

"The Iranian question isn't at the heart of relations between the two countries," he argued.

"Neither will sever ties with the other over Iran."

Features

Beirut’s Commodore Hotel, a Haven for Journalists During Lebanon’s Civil War, Shuts Down

People stand outside the closed Commodore hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP)
People stand outside the closed Commodore hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP)
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Beirut’s Commodore Hotel, a Haven for Journalists During Lebanon’s Civil War, Shuts Down

People stand outside the closed Commodore hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP)
People stand outside the closed Commodore hotel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP)

During Lebanon’s civil war, the Commodore Hotel in western Beirut's Hamra district became iconic among the foreign press corps.

For many, it served as an unofficial newsroom where they could file dispatches even when communications systems were down elsewhere. Armed guards at the door provided some sense of protection as sniper fights and shelling were turning the cosmopolitan city to rubble.

The hotel even had its own much-loved mascot: a cheeky parrot.

The Commodore endured for decades after the 15-year civil war ended in 1990 — until this week, when it closed for good.

The main gate of the nine-story hotel with more than 200 rooms was shuttered Monday. Officials at the Commodore refused to speak to the media about the decision to close.

Although the country’s economy is beginning to recover from a protracted financial crisis that began in 2019, tensions in the region and the aftermath of the Israel-Hezbollah war that was halted by a tenuous ceasefire in November 2024 are keeping many tourists away. Lengthy daily electricity cuts force businesses to rely on expensive private generators.

The Commodore is not the first of the crisis-battered country’s once-bustling hotels to shut down in recent years.

But for journalists who lived, worked and filed their dispatches there, its demise hits particularly hard.

“The Commodore was a hub of information — various guerrilla leaders, diplomats, spies and of course scores of journalists circled the cafes and lounges,” said Tim Llewellyn, a former BBC Middle East correspondent who covered the civil war. “On one occasion (late Palestinian leader) Yasser Arafat himself dropped in to sip coffee with” with the hotel manager's father, he recalled.

A line to the outside world

At the height of the civil war, when telecommunications were dysfunctional and much of Beirut was cut off from the outside world, it was at the Commodore where journalists found land lines and Telex machines that always worked to send reports to their media organizations around the globe.

Across the front office desk in the wide lobby of the Commodore, there were two teleprinters that carried reports of The Associated Press and Reuters news agencies.

“The Commodore had a certain seedy charm. The rooms were basic, the mattresses lumpy and the meal fare wasn’t spectacular,” said Robert H. Reid, the AP’s former Middle East regional editor, who was among the AP journalists who covered the war. The hotel was across the street from the international agency’s Middle East head office at the time.

“The friendly staff and the camaraderie among the journalist-guests made the Commodore seem more like a social club where you could unwind after a day in one of the world’s most dangerous cities,” Reid said.

Llewellyn remembers that the hotel manager at the time, Yusuf Nazzal, told him in the late 1970s “that it was I who had given him the idea” to open such a hotel in a war zone.

Llewellyn said that during a long chat with Nazzal on a near-empty Middle East Airlines Jumbo flight from London to Beirut in the fall of 1975, he told him that there should be a hotel that would make sure journalists had good communications, “a street-wise and well-connected staff running the desks, the phones, the teletypes.”

During Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and a nearly three-month siege of West Beirut by Israeli troops, journalists used the roof of the hotel to film fighter jets striking the city.

The parrot

One of the best-known characters at the Commodore was Coco the parrot, who was always in a cage near the bar. Patrons were often startled by what they thought was the whiz of an incoming shell, only to discover that it was Coco who made the sound.

AP’s chief Middle East correspondent Terry Anderson was a regular at the hotel before he was kidnapped in Beirut in 1985 and held for seven years, becoming one of the longest-held American hostages in history.

Videos of Anderson released by his kidnappers later showed him wearing a white T-shirt with the words “Hotel Commodore Lebanon.”

With the kidnapping of Anderson and other Western journalists, many foreign media workers left the predominantly-Muslim western part of Beirut, and after that the hotel lost its status as a safe haven for foreign journalists.

Ahmad Shbaro, who worked at different departments of the hotel until 1988, said the main reason behind the Commodore’s success was the presence of armed guards that made journalists feel secure in the middle of Beirut’s chaos as well as functioning telecommunications.

He added that the hotel also offered financial facilities for journalists who ran out of money. They would borrow money from Nazzal and their companies could pay him back by depositing money in his bank account in London.

Shbaro remembers a terrifying day in the late 1970s when the area of the hotel was heavily shelled and two rooms at the Commodore were hit.

“The hotel was full and all of us, staffers and journalists, spent the night at Le Casbah,” a famous nightclub in the basement of the building, he said.

In quieter times, journalists used to spend the night partying by the pool.

“It was a lifeline for the international media in West Beirut, where journalists filed, ate, slept, and hid from air raids, shelling, and other violence,” said former AP correspondent Scheherezade Faramarzi.

“It gained both fame and notoriety,” she said, speaking from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

The hotel was built in 1943 and kept functioning until 1987 when it was heavily damaged in fighting between Shiite and Druze militiamen at the time. The old Commodore building was later demolished and a new structure was build with an annex and officially opened again for the public in 1996.

But Coco the parrot was no longer at the bar. The bird went missing during the 1987 fighting. Shbaro said it is believed he was taken by one of the gunmen who stormed the hotel.

Features

Key Details of Greenland’s Rich but Largely Untapped Mineral Resources

Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP)
Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP)
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Key Details of Greenland’s Rich but Largely Untapped Mineral Resources

Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP)
Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP)

The Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers will meet US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday after President Donald Trump recently
stepped up threats to take over Greenland.

The autonomous territory of Denmark could be useful for the ​United States because of its strategic location and rich mineral resources. A 2023 survey showed that 25 of 34 minerals deemed "critical raw materials" by the European Commission were found in Greenland.

The extraction of oil and natural gas is banned in Greenland for environmental reasons, while development of its mining sector has been snarled in red tape and opposition from indigenous people.

Below are details of Greenland's main mineral deposits, based on data from its Mineral Resources Authority:

RARE EARTHS
Three of Greenland's biggest deposits are located in the southern province of Gardar.

Companies ‌seeking to ‌develop rare-earth mines are Critical Metals Corp, which bought the ‌Tanbreez ⁠deposit, ​Energy Transition Minerals, ‌whose Kuannersuit project is stalled amid legal disputes, and Neo Performance Materials.

Rare-earth elements are key to permanent magnets used in electric vehicles (EV) and wind turbines.

GRAPHITE
Occurrences of graphite and graphite schist are reported from many localities on the island.
GreenRoc has applied for an exploitation license to develop the Amitsoq graphite project.
Natural graphite is mostly used in EV batteries and steelmaking.

COPPER
According to the Mineral Resources Authority, most copper deposits have drawn only limited exploration campaigns.

Especially interesting are the underexplored areas ⁠in the northeast and center-east of Greenland, it said.

London-listed 80 Mile is seeking to develop the Disko-Nuussuaq deposit, which has ‌copper, nickel, platinum and cobalt.

NICKEL
Traces of nickel accumulations are numerous, ‍according to the Mineral Resources Authority.

Major miner ‍Anglo American was granted an exploration license in western Greenland in 2019 and has ‍been looking for nickel deposits, among others.

ZINC
Zinc is mostly found in the north in a geologic formation that stretches more than 2,500 km (1,550 miles).

Companies have sought to develop the Citronen Fjord zinc and lead project, which had been billed as one of the world's largest undeveloped zinc resources.

GOLD
The most prospective ​areas for gold potential are situated around the Sermiligaarsuk fjord in the country's south.

Amaroq Minerals launched a gold mine last year in Mt Nalunaq in ⁠the Kujalleq Municipality.

DIAMONDS
While most small diamonds and the largest stones are found in the island's west, their presence in other regions may also be significant.

IRON ORE
Deposits are located at Isua in southern West Greenland, at Itilliarsuk in central West Greenland, and in North West Greenland along the Lauge Koch Kyst.

TITANIUM-VANADIUM
Known deposits of titanium and vanadium are in the southwest, the east and south.

Titanium is used for commercial, medical and industrial purposes, while vanadium is mainly used to produce specialty steel alloys. The most important industrial vanadium compound, vanadium pentoxide, is used as a catalyst for the production of sulfuric acid.

TUNGSTEN
Used for several industrial applications, tungsten is mostly found in the central-east and northeast of the country, with assessed deposits in the south and west.

URANIUM
In 2021, ‌the then-ruling left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit party banned uranium mining, effectively halting development of the Kuannersuit rare-earths project, which has uranium as a byproduct.