As Israeli forces continue to bomb Hamas targets in Gaza nearly 80 days later, the risk of escalation in the Red Sea increases. Yemen’s pro-Iranian rebels, better known as the Houthis, are not giving up their resistance following the announcement of the US initiative to deploy an international naval force in the waters of the Persian Gulf – which would already be backed by more than $100,000 twenty countries – with the aim of maintaining security in the region and ensuring international trade.
The Shiite insurgents – who control much of the north and west of Yemeni territory – assert that they will not stop attacking US and Israeli interests since the start of the war in Gaza, nor will they stop blocking ships, Israeli companies own or are on their way to land. The movement officially called Ansar Allah, which translates as “Supporter of God,” Shia Zaidi, nationalist, anti-Sunni and anti-Zionist affiliation, emerged in the early 2000s, initially as an opponent of Ali Abdullah Salehwho ruled in an authoritarian manner until he took office in 2012.
Mohamed al Bukaitia member of the rebels’ political wing, insisted this week that the aforementioned operations “will not stop” as long as “the crimes of genocide in Gaza do not end,” referring to the IDF’s counterterrorism operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip year after October 7, “even if the US manages to mobilize the whole world.” A senior official of the movement, Mohamed Ali al-HouthiHe made his threat even clearer: “Any country that acts against us will make its ships targets in the Red Sea.”
The launch of the so-called Operation Guardian of Prosperity, announced by Washington last Monday, marks the expansion of the multinational naval force present in Gulf waters in the face of attacks – with drones and missiles – carried out by pro-Iranian forces in recent weeks Rebels. against merchant ships and the firing of projectiles into Israeli territory. According to US authorities, who view the Houthis as “an unprecedented global threat” that “requires collective action,” there have already been more than a hundred drone and missile attacks against 10 merchant vessels in Red Sea waters – none of them so far . caused casualties.
Fear of a regional expansion of the conflict
Fearing that the conflict with its epicenter in the Gaza Strip would spread to the entire Middle East, the United States – which has called on Israel to reduce the intensity of bombing in the Gaza Strip – is opting for the sea route for now, to the detriment of the option of direct drone bombing. and Shiite insurgent missile depots on Yemeni territory – so far neither Washington nor any of its allies have done this.
The biggest risk of the situation is that the U.S.-led offensive ends up directly drawing Iran into the conflict, which supports a range of proxy forces across the region. Tehran, which denies its involvement in Yemen’s insurgent attacks – as it has done with Hamas – warned the United States last week that it would face “extraordinary problems” if it ended up deploying a multinational force in Yemen’s waters of the Red Sea.
Without being too surprising, this Friday there is information from The Wall Street Journal claimed, citing Western intelligence sources, that Iranian paramilitary forces – stationed on a “spy ship” – are passing information about maritime traffic in the Red Sea to the Houthis, which the rebels use in their drone and missile attacks. “The Houthis do not have the radar technology to reach the ships,” said one of the sources in the above article.
In addition, a military offensive directly on Yemeni territory controlled by pro-Tehran rebels could reactivate the war that the Saudi-led coalition supporting the Yemeni army has been waging against the Houthis since 2015, after months of détente and diplomacy due to the Normalization leads to relationships. Initiated by Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two regional powers that support both sides in the conflict. According to the United Nations, the conflict had claimed more than 377,000 lives and displaced four million more by early 2022.
The aim of the mission – which will include Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the Seychelles, among others – is none other than to prevent alteration of international maritime trade and maintain security on one of them Routes. Main. Recently, several companies – including transport giants CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, Maersk and MSC, which account for more than half of the world’s container trade, as well as oil major BP – have announced that they would suspend their operations in the region or that they would extend their ships to much longer periods Routes will be rerouted. The possible consequences are the disruption of logistics chains and the increase in trading costs.
The above mission will be under the command of the Combined Maritime Forces, a multinational alliance dedicated to the defense of international sea routes, and in particular Task Force 153, created in April 2022 and operating in the Red Sea, in the Strait of Bab el Mandeb the Gulf of Aden. The specific plan of action the multinational coalition will implement to counter the rebel threat in a Middle East on the brink of escalation is still unknown.