“... Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior adviser to the Counter-Extremism Project, a transatlantic thinktank and advocacy group, said it was predictable that the Houthis and other groups would make such threats. “We shouldn’t read too much into the rhetoric … the Palestinian groups do not have the capability to escalate outside the [occupied] West Bank, while the Israelis have been so successful in last couple of weeks that I don’t think Lebanese Hezbollah can come to Iran’s defence.” Hezbollah, the most powerful of Iran’s proxies and the keystone of the coalition, is reeling from the Israeli assassination campaign. The group has lost nearly 500 fighters since it started firing into Israel in support of its ally, Hamas, last October and was then drawn into a prolonged war of attrition.”