Britain and the US are drawing up plans for an armed response to counter a wave of attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on commercial ships in the Red Sea.
The UK government has threatened to take “direct action” to prevent further attacks as part of an international effort to “keep open one of the world’s most important waterways”, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps wrote in The Daily Telegraph.
It comes after the US Navy confirmed it had destroyed three vessels from Houthi-controlled areas. They had fired upon a container ship in the narrow stretch of sea that runs from the Bab al-Mandab Strait off the coast of Yemen to the Suez Canal in northern Egypt, through which 12% of global trade, including 30% of the world’s shipping container traffic, passes.
How did the Houthi movement emerge?
The Houthis are an armed group from Yemen’s Shia Muslim minority, the Zaidis, who take their name from their founder, Hussein al-Houthi. Also known as Ansarallah (Supporters of God), the group was formed in the 1990s and waged a brutal civil war in Yemen after toppling the country’s government led by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in 2014.
Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia, which along with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) backed pro-government forces during the near-decade long conflict in Yemen. The UN has described it as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis; it was estimated to have claimed the lives of more than 375,000 people by the start of 2022.
A ceasefire was finally signed in 2022 and since then the Houthis have consolidated their control over most of northern Yemen and also sought a deal with the Saudis, which CNN said would “bring the war to a permanent end and cement their role as the country’s rulers”.
In fact, “most of the Yemeni population lives in areas under Houthi control”, said the BBC. As well as the north of the country, they also control the capital Sanaa and the Red Sea coastline. The group collects taxes and also prints money.
They also have international ambitions. Modelled on Hezbollah, the Shia armed group in Lebanon, the Houthis claim to be part of an “axis of resistance” of Iran-linked groups against the West and specifically Israel.
Why are they attacking ships in the Red Sea?
Houthi rebels began targeting ships in the Red Sea following Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. The group say they are focused on vessels either directly linked to Israel or heading to Israeli ports, but attacks seem largely indiscriminate. Shapps claimed Houthi attacks increased by 500% from November to December with the latest incident involving the Singapore-flagged Maersk Hangzhou.
Thomas Juneau, an assistant professor from the University of Ottawa, told The Times the Houthis have both domestic and regional objectives in mind. Domestically, they want to mobilise strong pro-Palestinian feelings among the Yemeni population to “shore up their base”, he said. They also want to send a strong message that they have emerged as a regional power and as a core player in the Iran-backed “axis of resistance”.
As well as attacking shipping, the rebels have also fired missiles and drones at Israel, the Financial Times reported.
What are the global implications of the attacks?
The Red Sea attacks have “forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes”, said CNN, “which could potentially cause a shock to the global economy”.
In December, the US launched Operation Prosperity Guardian, an international coalition to safeguard shipping in the region that included the deployment of Royal Navy destroyer HMS Diamond.
Under pressure from Israel, which has warned that it is ready to act against the Houthis if the international community does not, “the UK and US are preparing a joint statement to issue a final warning to the Yemeni group”, reported The Guardian. If this fails, The Times said plans are being drawn up that would see the UK join with the US and possibly another European country to “unleash a salvo of missiles against pre-planned targets, either in the sea or in Yemen itself, where the militants are based”.
While neither the West nor Houthi rebels wish for a full-blown conflict, Shapps has warned that “continued Red Sea aggression risks miscalculation and escalation which could trigger a region-wide conflict”.
Failing to protect the Red Sea also risks “emboldening those looking to threaten elsewhere including in the South China Sea and Crimea”, Shapps added.
Shia group hopes to present itself as a key regional player in the Iran-backed ‘axis of resistance’
