Attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on shipping traffic through key trade routes in the Red Sea have led to an escalation in tensions in the region over the past week.
The Islamist group, which has been designated as a "global terrorist" entity by the United States, claims it began striking a narrow stretch of sea between Yemen and east Africa in a bid to disrupt Israel's air and ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The US and UK have hit back, striking more than a dozen sites used by the rebel group in response to the attacks on shipping which started in November.
Iona Craig is a British-Irish investigative journalist who's been covering Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula for over a decade.
Craig, who once survived an attempt on her life in the country she called home for four years, spoke to Katie Hannon about the latest flare up in tensions and what it means for the troubled region going forward.
"The Houthis are relishing this opportunity to fight America. They've wanted to do it for all their existence," Ms Craig told Katie Hannon on Upfront: The Podcast.
"They have this very anti-Israeli, anti-Western stance, and a lot of that comes out of America's invasion of Iraq. A lot of these activities now that are happening in the region have been in the planning for many years, if not decades," Ms Craig said.
"At the moment, it's all relatively low-level incidents. But they are all connected and that's why I think the risk of escalation is so huge. I think what we should all be realistic about now is this is a wider conflict. I was totting this up yesterday and you have now got 17 countries that have engaged. You've got seven or eight now non-state actors on top of that.
"It's a tipping point into something bigger and I'm really concerned about that. The UK and the US can deny this is all connected to Israel as long as they like, but that doesn't make it so."
LISTEN: Iona Craig speaks to Katie Hannon on Upfront: The Podcast
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The campaign by Houthi rebels, which has largely focused on the disruption of commercial shipping in the Red Sea, has caused severe disruption to global shipping and the wider economy.
"We've already seen January of this year compared to the first week of January last year a 90% fall in the amount of cargo vessels going through the Suez Canal. Instead of going through the Suez Canal they're having to take at least 10 days extra at sea around South Africa in the Cape of Good Hope."
"That all costs money. I think this could go on for many months and impact all of us in the sense of the price of goods and the availability of goods, that impacts inflation, the ability of governments to reduce interest rates. This could impact people's mortgages as well as what they're buying in the shops," Ms Craig said.
READ MORE: Explained: Why Red Sea attacks are likely to push up Irish prices
Prior to her career as a journalist, Ms Craig worked as a jockey and racehorse trainer in both Ireland and the UK. At one point she served as assistant trainer to six-time British Champion Jumps trainer Nicky Henderson.
But injury curtailed her career in racing, and she shifted focus to journalism, eventually settling in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a.
"I really fell in love with Yemen in so many ways. I always feel very nostalgic about it now because the country I fell in love with doesn't really exist anymore."
Iona lived in Sana'a from 2010 through 2014, working as Yemen correspondent for The Times of London, covering Yemen’s revolution and the civil war that began in 2014.
"It was a real privilege now looking back. I think to witness a revolution in a country is always a hugely historical moment and something of a real privilege actually to witness the country going through all of that."
The civil war continued for more than a decade, and now sees the Houthis controlling large areas of the west of Yemen, including the capital.
In 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE entered the war on the side of the internationally recognised Yemeni government, against the Houthis. This development prompted Ms Craig to return to Yemen.
She entered Yemen on a humanitarian boat, travelling across the Bab el Mandeb from the east-African country of Djibouti.
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"I knew the people who were involved in bringing that vessel in. They agreed to take me in and out. I had a visa, but when I got into Aden, which is where the boat was coming into, it was under siege by the Houthis.
"It was pretty devastating to turn up in Aden, having spent time there before when I was living in Yemen and to see what was unfolding. I realised it wasn't safe for me to be reporting from inside the country."
Ms Craig made the crossing between Djibouti and Yemen three times in 2015, filing reports for TV, radio and print from inside the two besieged cities of Aden and Taiz as well as the Houthi stronghold of Sa'ada. This was a time when very few western journalists were able to access Yemen and report from the ground.
"In order to get those stories out, I had to leave to then be able to get that footage out, write the stories that I had to write, and then I went back again and stayed for several months.
"By the end of 2015, I ended up in Houthi controlled territory and I was put under house arrest. They seized my passport, and I wasn't able to leave."
While still living in Yemen in 2013, Ms Craig survived an assassination attempt.
"I was coming from a political rally. I flagged down a random taxi to go home. I was probably saved by the fact that I had my head down as I was sending a text message to a colleague of mine. Somebody opened fire from over my right shoulder and the bullets came through the window. I laid down in the foot well and played dead," Ms Craig said of the attempt on her life.
"The taxi driver was very quick thinking. He saw that I was alright, swung around the vehicle and just took off down the road. He didn't know I was a journalist. When I told him he put his head in his hands and said, What were you doing getting my taxi?' So, I said, 'Don't worry, I won't call you again for a ride‘. Iona Craig says she doesn’t know who tried to kill her.
"There were several local Yemeni journalists who were a target in the same period, some of whom were killed. Anybody who's covered conflict for a long time, you have those kind of hairy moments. It's not about talent or bravery, it's about stubbornness. My stubbornness always outweighs my stick ability and that's kind of been my thing through life really."
Ms Craig’s experience living in Yemen and covering conflict in the country leads her to believe that the airstrikes from US and UK coalition forces could go on for some time, because, she believes, the Houthis are emboldened, and have no intention of backing down.
"They've been bombed for seven years by the Saudis; they've been sanctioned, they've been blockaded, they are now the heroes of the hour because this has proved extremely popular what they're doing in the region."
"There's been a huge vacuum really of any of the Arab nations taking a stand to support the people of Gaza or to challenge what Israel has been doing. The Houthis have really filled that vacuum," Ms Craig said.
Who are the Houthis?
The Houthis are a Yemeni rebel group who control the west of the country, including its Red Sea coast. They are aligned with and supplied by Iran but are politically independent.
They emerged in the 1990s as a religious revivalist group.
"It really started to kick off after one of their founders, a guy called Hussein al-Houthi, a Yemeni parliamentarian, was shot dead by Yemeni security forces in 2004. That's what started six rounds of war between the Houthis as they became known and the Yemeni government that lasted on and off between 2004 and 2010," Ms Craig said.
READ MORE: Who are the Houthi rebels behind attacks on shipping in Red Sea?
The conflict internally in Yemen had been relatively quiet since 2022 but this changed following Hamas' attack on Israel on 7 October and the response from Israel in its bombardment of Gaza.
"This prompted the Houthis to start flexing their muscles again and having gained a lot of territory on the Red Sea during the civil war, including a major port called Hudaydah."
"They started launching attacks, initially with mid-range ballistic missiles up to Israel, but none of them hit their targets. And then they hijacked a vessel in the Red Sea in November and took it into Hudaydah," Ms Craig continued. "It's going to have a huge impact on countries across Europe if this continues and I think it will."
Listen to Iona Craig speaking to Katie Hannon on Upfront: The Podcast here, on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify.
