DAVOS, Switzerland — The U.S. was warned about the dangers Houthi rebels posed to the Middle East before Israel’s war with Hamas but “they didn’t do anything,” the vice president of Yemen’s United Nations-recognized government told NBC News.
Maj. Gen. Aidarus al-Zubaidi said he met with American and British officials on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in September and told them that the Iran-backed militant group was regrouping and rearming during a pause in fighting in its long-running war with a coalition led by Saudi Arabia.
“They wrote everything down,” al-Zubaidi said Sunday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan are expected to speak about returning stability to the Middle East.
“They didn’t do anything,” said al-Zubaidi.
NBC News has approached the State Department for comment.
Around three weeks after al-Zubaidi said he gave his warning, on Oct. 7, Hamas launched multipronged attacks on Israel killing 1,200 people and taking around 240 hostage. Israeli officials say around 100 still remain in captivity after scores were released in late November as part of an exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
After Israel launched its military assault on Gaza that has so far killed more than 24,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials, the Houthis declared support for Hamas and began launching missiles at Israel and bombarding ships in the Red Sea.
On Monday, U.S. Central Command said in a statement that Houthis “fired an anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and struck the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands-flagged, U.S.-owned and operated container ship.”
Yemen forms the eastern side of the Bab al-Mandeb strait — or “the Gate of Grief” — a 16-mile stretch of water that marks the entrance to the Red Sea, one of the most important shipping lanes in the world. CNBC…
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