Every merchant mariner's nightmare: masked armed men jump from a helicopter onto the ship's deck and order the civilian crew to lie down, holding them at gunpoint and shutting down communications.
This scene, as the "Financial Times" writes, took place at the end of last year on the cargo ship "Galaxy Leader", which was hijacked by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, forcing it to change direction towards Yemen. It was one of the most daring attacks carried out by this Yemeni Islamist movement on merchant ships in the past two months.
The Houthi attacks have disrupted shipping in a key maritime shipping route and drawn US and British forces into conflict. The Islamist rebels have become one of the most active factions in Iran's so-called Axis of Resistance since the October 7 war between Israel and Hamas.
By opening a front in the Red Sea, they demonstrated the Iran-linked group's ability to harm Western interests, highlighted the Houthis' credibility as supporters of the Palestinian cause and launched them onto the regional and international stage, analysts told the Financial Times.
The Houthis are "very good military entrepreneurs" who seize every "opportunity" that arises in the war, he said. Farea al Muslimi, a Yemeni expert in the Chatham House organization.
"They truly believe that the right opportunity has come to defend Palestine and oppose Israel, and to show how hypocritical other Arab countries are," he told the FT. "As long as the war in Gaza continues, the Houthis will escalate the situation on the Red Sea".
In the process, they pose a significant challenge to the US and its Western allies, who are forced to weigh their determination to preserve a key shipping route against the risk of spreading unrest in a region already on edge from the Gaza war. With yesterday's attacks by bombers, ships and submarines on targets across Yemen, US and British forces sent a signal that they will defend their commercial interests. President of the USA Joe Biden said that "targeted attacks are a clear message that the United States and partners will not tolerate attacks on personnel or allow hostile actors to threaten freedom of navigation".
One American official said that the targets were chosen to weaken the Houthis' ability to attack: "We targeted very specific capacities in very specific places with precision missiles."
The British Ministry of Defense announced that there were indications that "the ability of the Houthis to threaten merchant ships has been dealt a blow." Officials, as reported by Reuters, said that no further actions are planned for now.
The Houthis, who have controlled most of Yemen for nearly a decade, said five of their fighters were killed in a total of 73 attacks. They vowed to take revenge and continue to attack ships in support of the Palestinians against Israel.
The Houthi attacks have forced commercial ships to take a longer, more expensive route around Africa, sparking fears of a new wave of inflation and supply chain disruption. Automaker Tesla said delays in shipping parts from Asia due to unrest in the Red Sea forced the company to close its factory in Germany for two weeks.
Maersd, the Danish shipping company, recently suspended all Red Sea transit for the "foreseeable future", joining dozens of other companies, including energy group BP, in efforts to avoid the route.
US officials accuse Iran of being "deeply involved" in planning the Houthi attacks on the ships, claiming the rebels use Iranian drones and that Tehran provides "tactical intelligence" to the group. Iranian officials have praised the Houthi attacks, but rejected U.S. claims that Tehran was involved in planning or supplying the group with weapons.
Tehran insists that militant groups within the Axis of Resistance - which also includes Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah - operate independently.
The Houthis, who belong to the Zaidi Shiite branch of Islam, are not ideologically aligned with Iran or other Shiite militant movements in the region. However, they have drawn closer to the Islamic Republic after fighting a nearly nine-year war against a Saudi coalition that intervened in Yemen's civil conflict after the Houthis overthrew the Yemeni government.
The Houthis control most of the north of the country, including the port of Hodeida, where the ship "Galaxy Leader" is located.
Iran announced yesterday that it condemned the US-British attack on the Houthis in Yemen, warning that it would cause "insecurity and instability" in the region.
Whether the strikes will actually discourage further attacks on the ships will depend on how the Houthis respond, he told Reuters. Tobias Bork, an expert on Middle East security at Britain's Royal Institute. The Houthis want to present themselves as defenders of the Palestinian cause and opponents of the West, but they are mostly concerned about preserving power. "Is this the way they want to finish," Bork said. "They've been doing well, they've managed to survive the last eight years, they've expanded their power, but now they're attracting airstrikes from the most powerful military in the world."
Chatham House Muslims, however, argues that foreign and domestic forces have long underestimated the Houthis, a battle-hardened group from Yemen's rugged mountainous province in the far north that has been at war with a Saudi-led coalition for years.
"This is a powerful group," he said. "It inherited Russian weapons from the former government, built up its capacities, and after eight years of war, emerged at the forefront of arms smuggling between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and Iran. The Houthis will go further than even what Iran would like”.
He points out that the years of Saudi Arabia's airstrikes had previously caused great suffering to the Yemeni people, but that they had little effect on discouraging the Houthi attacks: "The Saudis have been implementing that strategy in Yemen for nine years, and they obviously failed."
Many Yemenis despise the Houthis, who have been accused of a host of abuses, but the Palestinian cause transcends the country's factional divisions. Yesterday, until the afternoon hours, a large number of people gathered in the center of Sana'a and other cities carrying Palestinian and Yemeni flags and shouting slogans against Israel and the USA.
A large number of citizens also rushed to gas stations yesterday in fear of a new long conflict.
"There is great concern that fuel shortages will reoccur and food supplies will be scarce," he told Reuters. But Ahmad, 52. “We are in a hurry to fill the tank, and we have bought flour and rice in case of any emergency as we expect a response from the Hutts and an escalation of the situation.”
Oil prices surged yesterday on concerns that supply could be disrupted, with Brent crude up $2. According to commercial ship tracking data, at least four oil tankers changed course yesterday to avoid the Red Sea.
Conspicuous absence of Italy, Spain and France from the military operation
The fact that Italy, Spain and France did not join the American and British attacks on the Houthis in Yemen, and that they did not even join the countries that justified the attack in a statement, highlights the divisions in the West about how this Islamist group should be treated.
The Netherlands, Australia, Canada and Bahrain provided logistical and intelligence support for the US-UK operation, while Germany, Denmark and South Korea signed a joint statement supporting attacks on Houthi positions.
A source from Prime Minister Djordje Meloni's office told Reuters that Italy refused to sign the statement, and that is why the country was not asked to participate in the attacks. However, a source from the government said that Italy was asked to participate, but that it refused for two reasons. The first is that the inclusion of Italy requires parliamentary approval, which would take time, and the second is that Rome prefers a policy of "appeasement" in the Red Sea.
One French official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Paris feared that by participating in the US-led strikes, France would lose legitimacy in talks to defuse tensions between Hezbollah and Israel. However, expressing a kind of support for the action, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France issued a statement yesterday stating that the Houthis are responsible for the escalation.
Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said that Madrid did not join the military action in the Red Sea because it wants to promote peace in the region. "Each country needs to explain its actions. Spain will always be dedicated to peace and dialogue," she told reporters in Madrid.
NATO announced yesterday that the US and UK airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen were "defensive". "The attacks were defensive and aimed at preserving free navigation on one of the most important sea lanes in the world," NATO spokesman Dylan White said.
However, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of NATO member Turkey, yesterday criticized the attacks as an excessive use of force and accused the US and Britain of turning the Red Sea into a "sea of blood" and risking an escalation of the conflict in the region.
The attack on the Houthis in Yemen was also condemned by Russia, claiming that it is another example of "Anglo-Saxon distortion of UN Security Council resolutions". The spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Marija Zaharova, said that the attacks show "complete disregard for international law" and that they "escalate the situation in the region."
Saudi Arabia called for restraint and "avoidance of escalation" and stated that it was monitoring the situation with "great concern".
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