On Sunday it looked like the United States was about to wade back into its fight with Ansar Allah, or the Houthis, the Iran-backed group in Yemen that has grown into a surprisingly powerful military presence in the region.
Saudi Arabia had been asking for support after a series of Houthi attacks and advancements,
which brought a major global shipping and oil chokepoint - the Bab el-Mandeb strait - under Houthi control.
Iona Craig has been reporting on Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula for over a decade and she joins us to track the group's rise from a group of rebels from the mountains of northwestern Yemen to a geopolitical force.
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