of Yemen by Iran-backed Houthi forces and former military units loyal to deposed President Ali Saleh. (5) As of July 2019, Iranian-sponsored Houthi rebels have conducted up to 14 ballistic missile and weaponized unmanned aerial system attacks per month against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, posing a significant threat and endangering the lives of 80,000 Americans residing on the Arabian Peninsula. (6) Yemen serves as sanctuary space for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). AQAP external operations plotting poses a direct threat to the United States and United States allies. AQAP was responsible for the Paris attacks against the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, and was involved in terrorist plots against the United States, including the Christmas Day Bomber in 2009 and the Times Square Bomber in 2010. The ongoing civil war and resulting instability has complicated efforts to counter AQAP in Yemen. (7) Yemen sits adjacent to the Bab el-Mandeb strait, a strategic waterway located between Djibouti and Yemen that links the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. Free flow of traffic through the strait, only 18 miles across at its narrowest point, is critical to exports from the Persian Gulf and Asia destined for Western markets. (8) Iranian-sponsored Houthi coastal weapons, explosive boats, and mines pose a direct threat to the free flow of commerce and shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb strait. (9) In October 2016, Houthi forces struck a United Arab Emirates merchant vessel, and twice attacked a United States Navy vessel, the USS Mason, as they transited the Bab el-Mandeb strait. In July 2018, Iranian-sponsored Houthi forces attacked and damaged two Saudi oil tankers attempting to transit the strait. (10) According to the United Nations, the civil war in Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and has resulted in approximately 24,000,000 Yemenis in need of humanitarian assistance, roughly 80 percent of the population. (11) The Houthi seizure of the Sana’a Central Bank has resulted in the