Quote:Shortly after Israel began its war on Gaza last year, Yemen’s Ansarallah, commonly known as the Houthis, began firing missiles and drones at Israel-linked merchant and commercial vessels in the Gulf of Aden and southern Red Sea.

This was Ansarallah’s way of supporting the Palestinians in Gaza by “counter-blockading the blockader.” Such action has been consistent with Ansarallah’s practice of taking an “eye-for-an-eye” when dealing with the rebel movement’s domestic and foreign enemies.

Perceiving this Houthi conduct near the Bab al-Mandab strait as a major threat to the global economy, the U.S. and U.K. — with nonoperational support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands — began waging military operations against Ansarallah on January 12. The aim has been to deter the Houthis from carrying out such maritime attacks.

The coalition has been waging these strikes against the Houthis on almost a daily basis for the past five months. Recently, on June 7, the U.S. and U.K. conducted six air strikes — four of which targeted Yemen’s Hodeidah airport and the Salif seaport, while two were against the al-Thawra region, according to the Houthi-owned, Beirut-based Al Masirah TV.

These strikes came eight days after the two Western militaries attacked Houthi targets in Hodeida and southern Yemen, killing at least 16 and wounding 35 in what appeared to be one of Washington and London’s largest attacks against Ansarallah since the joint American-British campaign began in mid-January.

How much damage the strikes have inflicted on the Houthi war machine and its ability to continue attacking maritime targets is difficult to determine. Nonetheless, these operations, which have cost the U.S. some $1 billion according to a new intelligence report, have ultimately failed to deter Ansarallah, which continues firing missiles and drones at vessels off Yemen’s coast.

“Clearly, there has been some damage [to Houthi targets], but not at a significant level; the Houthis have suffered some losses, but they retain the ability to obstruct maritime shipping in the Red Sea,” said Thomas Juneau, an associate professor who focuses on the Middle East at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, in an interview with RS.

“And perhaps more importantly, beyond the material damage they have suffered, their intent to continue obstructing shipping in the Red Sea has not wavered.”

Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House, sees the overall situation similarly. “The Houthis have remained undeterred, and the U.S.-U.K. strikes have had limited impact as evidenced by continued attacks despite repeated U.S.-U.K. attempts to disrupt the group’s campaign,” he told RS. “Continuation of the military campaign is unlikely to deter the Houthis.”

Since the military campaign against the de facto Yemeni government in Sanaa began in January, the U.S. has waged 450 strikes against Ansarallah. There is good reason to question the sustainability of these U.S.-U.K. operations against the Houthis. “Their supply of weapons from Iran is cheap and highly sustainable, but ours is expensive and our logistics tails are long. We are playing whack-a-mole, and they are playing a long game,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Emily Harding recently told the Wall Street Journal.

The Biden administration refuses to see Houthi conduct in the Gulf of Aden and the southern Red Sea as linked to the U.S.-backed Israeli war on Gaza. Although Ansarallah has been straightforward with their vows to cease disruptive behavior off Yemen’s coasts once a ceasefire is in place in Gaza, the White House claims there is no connection between the two and that continuing these military operations against the Houthis, rather than addressing the root cause of this behavior, is the best course of action.

There is no denying that the coalition strikes have, to a significant extent, empowered the Houthis within Yemen and across the Arab world. Mindful of how anti-Israeli sentiments are shared by Yemenis across the country and its political spectrum, it has not been surprising to see Ansarallah boost its recruitment as a result of its maritime attacks waged under the banner of defending the Palestinians.

In the process, this has also put anti-Houthi forces in Yemen under increased pressure. This includes the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which depends on support from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Arab state that pioneered the Abraham Accords — a series of normalization agreements between Arab states and Israel. The Houthis have seized this crisis as an opportunity to “bolster their position as champions of the Palestinian cause, allowing them to increase their regional prestige and influence,” explained Juneau.

Ultimately it is unclear what Western and regional actors can do to influence the Houthis, who have proven their ability to live under intense pressure from the West and certain Arab states.

“The reality on the ground in Yemen is that the Houthis have won the civil war and the internationally recognized government is not in a position to challenge them; it is weak, fragmented, and corrupt,” Juneau told RS.

“The Houthis, moreover, fully intend to project their power beyond Yemen’s borders now that they have won the war. The U.S. faces a menu of only bad options in the face of this reality.”

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO and founder of Gulf State Analytics, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in Washington, DC. He is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, and an Adjunct Fellow at the American Security Project.

Are the Houthis winning in the Red Sea?

(06-19-2024, 05:07 AM)727Sky Wrote: Just about everything this regime has done has been to the detriment of America both inside the borders and outside.

Quote:In the last week, Houthi forces killed a merchant mariner, sunk a commercial ship and forced a crew to abandon another in flames. The attacks come as the Houthis continue to escalate its eight-month campaign against commercial traffic in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The Houthis attacked MV Verbena, a Ukrainian-owned, Polish-operated bulk cargo carrier and Liberian-flagged MV Tutor, leading to both crews abandoning ship after the damage caused fires and flooding. Tutor sank following missile damage led to flooding, while Verbena’s crew abandoned the ship after it could not put out fires caused by the Houthi strike. Aircraft from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, as well as another commercial ship, helped evacuate the crews.

The group says its will not slow its assault on merchant ships unless Israel ends its attacks in Gaza.

Comparative data from Marine Traffic suggests that the Houthi attacks have led to a 79.6 percent drop in drybulk carriers going through the Suez Canal in June 2024 versus June 2023. The recent attacks and sinking of Tutor is expected to lead to an additional rise in insurance costs for companies planning to send ships through the Red Sea.

Central Command continues to work with partners to degrade the Houthi abilities, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters Tuesday.

“We’re very focused on ensuring that these kinds of attacks are degraded, that the Houthis will continue to understand that there’s going to be a price to be paid for essentially preventing freedom of navigation in this vital international waterway, and it’s just completely unacceptable,” Ryder said.

Central Command conducted a number of strikes on Houthi equipment, with near daily attacks on Houthi weaponry.

“And I would say that really, it’s the Houthis that have failed to deter the United States and the international community from continuing to operate in the Red Sea. You know, they’ve conducted over 190 attacks, the vast majority of which have been knocked down, thanks to U. S. and international efforts to help safeguard shipping and the lives of mariners through operations like Operation Prosperity Guardian,” Ryder said.

But while the Pentagon says the U.S. is degrading the Houthi abilities, they continue to be able to attack ships, Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told USNI News in a statement this week.

“The United States has continued to destroy Houthi offensive capabilities in Yemen, but the terror group continues to have sufficient means to threaten shipping. This offers insights regarding the size of the terror group’s arsenal and suggests that the Houthis continue to enjoy a supply of arms from its patron in Tehran,” Bowman said in the email. “An effort to destroy capabilities in Yemen that does not devote sufficient attention and resources to interdicting weapons shipments from Iran to Yemen is not unlike the homeowner cleaning up puddles but ignoring the hole in the roof.”

Bowman said that a majority of vessels that continue to travel through the Red Sea are able to do so safely, in part because of the Navy and Operation Prosperity Guardian.

“But the Houthis only need to succeed every now and then to achieve their objectives,” he said.

Based on the Marine Traffic data, the Houthi attacks are having a measurable difference in the Suez Canal traffic. While the Houthi attacks are the main cause to the drop, the reasons could be due to timidness from the companies worried about the Yemeni group as well as rising insurance costs making it cost adverse to go through the Suez.

The DIA report found that 65 countries have been affected by the Houthi strikes with 29 major shipping companies also hampered by the attacks. Companies, such as Maersk, chose to go around the Cape of Good Hope, at the tip of South Africa, instead of going through the Red Sea in order to avoid strikes, causing up to $1 million in fuel costs and additional transit times of one to two weeks. This also led to a delay in humanitarian aid to countries like Yemen, according to the report.

The Houthi attacks are not helping Palestinians but instead hurting the Yemeni people, Ryder said Tuesday.

The report listed these effects as of February, making it unclear how many companies are still transiting around Africa.



Maersk, which had sent ships around Africa, has resumed sending ships through the Red Sea, as recently as this month, as the Houthis claimed to have targeted a Maersk ship on June 5, according to USNI News’ timeline.

Swiss company MSC has also continued to send ships through the Red Sea, with the Houthis targeting a number of MSC ships, according to USNI News’ timeline.

The Houthis first attacked commercial ships connected to Israel, expanding to those with ties to the U.S. and United Kingdom following coordinated strikes by the two countries, in partnership with other nations. The Yemen-based group then began to attack any ship going to or from Israel, as well, before declaring they would attack nearly any commercial ship transiting through the Red Sea, as well the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, USNI News previously reported. The Houthis have also claimed they would target some ships in the Mediteranean Sea.

Houthi spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Sare’e posts every couple of days on the site with an update, usually including operations that target a number of ships. Sometimes Central Command releases match up with the Houthi claims. Other days, the Houthis list ships that go unmentioned by Central Command.

Houthi Attacks Causing More Damage in the Red Sea

Quote:Trauma From Red Sea Attacks Adds to Seafarer Shortage

ATHENS, June 19 (Reuters) – When a missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi Islamists landed near his ship in the Red Sea, Costas Rassias vowed to stop sailing through the perilous waters.

“I froze,” said the Greek 34-year-old second class marine engineer, describing the close call. “I weighed what was more important – my life, or a better income?”

As attacks on merchant ships by the Iran-backed Houthis persist, traumatized seafarers are refusing to sail through the Red Sea, according to interviews with more than 15 crew members and shipping industry officials.

That’s another staffing headache for an industry already facing a shortage of seafarers worldwide, with ranks having shrunk after COVID kept seafarers on board for months and the war in Ukraine posed dangers in the Black Sea.

“Seafarers are less and less keen to willingly sail through that region and it is becoming a bigger challenge now,” an industry source with knowledge of the crisis said.

Container ship sailings through the Red Sea dropped 78% in May compared with a year ago, analysis from logistics platform project44 shows, as companies choose to go around Africa, raising costs and extending voyages.

“My answer is very clear: No,” said Rassias, when asked if he would go back again. He is a member of Greece’s marine engineers’ union PEMEN.

“We urge our members not to give in to pressure, to put their safety and lives first and demand not to work in war zones at any cost.”

ROCKETS FLY

Charles Watkins, CEO and clinical psychologist at Mental Health Support Solutions, has met 40 seafarers from two ships that sailed through the Red Sea. Many have experienced trauma and some are considering leaving the trade.

“There can be sleep disturbances, nightmares, they can be easily startled, they can be stressed, they can develop a sudden urge not to eat anything anymore,” Watkins said.

Most ships have deployed armed guards on board to help defend crew during potential attacks, but crew themselves are rarely trained or equipped for conflict.

“The majority of merchant ship crews have no military training whatsoever,” said John Pavlopoulos, head of Sea Guardian, whose armed guards have made thousands of crossings through the area. “The slightest explosion disconcerts them, stresses them out.”

Boris Basenko, Ukrainian captain of the Greek-owned bulk carrier Zografia which was struck by a rocket this year near Yemen, said he doubts he will sail again through the region.

“Rockets fly into my home city every day but I was caught by a rocket a few hundred miles away” from Ukraine, he said. “Almost everyone from my crew at that time did not want to return to the Red Sea.”

Johnrhez Balboa, a 26-year-old engine cadet from the Philippines on his first nine-month stint at sea, was aboard the first vessel to pass through the Red Sea last December after another ship, the Galaxy Leader, was hijacked. His crew maintained a “pirate watch,” scanning the water for hijackers.

“We were afraid and anxious,” he said “Guarding our ship was scary.”

Mariners have support if they choose not to go, said John Canias, head of maritime operations with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), the leading seafarer’s union.

The nearly 360,000 seafarers covered by an ITF agreement worldwide have the contractual right to refuse to sail in designated war zones and demand repatriation at the shipowner’s expense. In April, one such zone in the Red Sea, known as a “warlike operations area,” was expanded at ITF’s request, Canias said.

“Many shipowners are now more reluctant to sail through the area as they simply don’t want to put seafarers’ lives on the line,” he said.

GROWING DEMAND

Over 80% of global trade is shipped by sea and an estimated 1.8 million seafarers service ships, with growing shortages of qualified mariners.

Some 18,000 additional officers would need to join each year to meet demand, according to the most recent seafarer workforce report published in 2021. Thousands of higher level officers are needed to service the 80,000-strong ocean-going fleet.

Some Greek captains have already requested to be transferred to other vessels to avoid the Red Sea, a union official said. At least four Greek companies have in recent months decided not to cross the area, company officials said.

“We don’t like to profit off the pain of others. We won’t send our ships there,” said George Logothetis, executive chairman of privately owned U.S.-headquartered Libra Group.

Other companies are reviewing each case separately, weighing the risks for crews and vessels.

Rene Kofod-Olsen, CEO of V.Group, one of the world’s biggest ship management and crewing companies, said their managed fleet’s crossings have declined since the beginning of the conflict.

He said in the instances where their ship owner clients have opted to sail through, “we give our seafarers the opportunity to not proceed and we can change crew.”

Quote:by Captain John Konrad (gCaptain OpEd) For over a decade, gCaptain has championed a cleaner, more responsible maritime industry. Rooted in Silicon Valley, we’ve fervently supported startups tackling our biggest challenges. Today, environmental responsibility permeates the industry. Although maritime startups remain underfunded, they are finally gaining traction with private equity and venture capital. As an environmentalist, I should be thrilled by these developments, especially with Bill Gates spearheading new plans for the electrification of shipping. Yet, I am deeply worried.

As the first digital-only publication to reach a global audience, I have urged executives for decades to embrace new ideas and technologies.

“Approximately 90% of the world’s goods travel by sea, emitting over a billion tons of CO2 every year,” said Gates in a video posted to LinkedIn. “That’s why I’m so excited about Fleetzero’s breakthrough battery technology, which will help decarbonize ocean freight at an affordable cost and accelerated pace.”

While I appreciate Bill Gates’ entry into shipping, as an environmentalist, I believe his approach is flawed not just because electrifying ships would require mining massive amounts of rare earth material and copper but because the underlying ESG premise is flawed.

Ships are ten times more efficient than trucks and a hundred times more than planes. To decarbonize effectively, we must shift more than 90% of cargo onto the water. This requires more vessels consuming more energy, not less. Faster ships that compete with planes and numerous feeder vessels moving cargo inland are key. The latter can be hybrid-electric, but the former necessitates diesel or nuclear power.

*********

ESG confidently assures a just and balanced future, where shipping holds a crucial position. Yet, it’s essential to remember that no passenger is safe aboard a ship that’s sinking from a Houthi missile, Russian mine or Chinese Coast Guard water-cannons.

Quote:According to UKMTO, a vessel transiting the Red Sea was attacked by a waterborne improvised explosive device at 0645 GMT on Thursday morning. The incident occurred about 80 nautical miles southwest of Hodeidah, Yemen, an area of high activity for malicious Houthi operations.

The vessel and the crew were reported to be safe, and the ship is under way to its next port of call. Western military forces are investigating the circumstances of the attack.

In a statement, Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree identified the target vessel as the Greek-owned, Malta-flagged Panamax bulker Seajoy. He said that Houthi forces targeted the ship with multiple missiles, drones and an uncrewed surface boat, leading to a "direct and accurate hit." He claimed that the vessel was targeted because it called at a port in Israel, a violation of the Yemeni group's attempted embargo on Israeli maritime commerce.

Seajoy's last received AIS position was in the Strait of Malacca on June 12, headed westbound. Her last declared destination was Durban, South Africa, and her AIS record shows no signs of a port call in Israel in the last 12 months, according to data from Pole Star.

Houthi WBIEDs - remotely-controlled bomb boats - are a potent threat to shipping in the Red Sea. A similar device, carefully disguised as a small fishing vessel, struck and sank the bulker Tutor earlier this month. One crewmember was killed in the attack, and the rest of the crew abandoned ship. A crewmember on the bridge captured a video of the drone boat as it approached, as well as the aftermath of the explosion (below).

Last weekend, U.S. forces identified and destroyed three WBIEDs in the Red Sea, suggesting a higher pace of activity for this class of Houthi devices than previously seen.

Houthis Hit Another Merchant Ship With a Bomb Boat

Quote:“For the first time, the identity of the missile that targeted the Israeli (sic) ship MSC Sarah V in the Arabian Sea,” was being revealed according to a posting for the Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree. “It is a locally made hypersonic missile that possesses advanced technology, is accurate in hitting, and reaches long ranges.”

Observers are raising new concerns based on the distance of the reported attack. The MSC Sarah V (67,795 dwt registered in Liberia) was 280 miles southeast of Nishtun, in eastern Yemen near Oman. The vessel was sailing on Monday near Yemen’s Socotra Island bound for Abu Dhabi. While the Houthis as always claimed a direct hit, the UK Maritime Trade Organizations said it received a report from the master of a “close proximity” explosion. They said there were no injuries or damage and the vessel was proceeding.

Video: Houthis Claim First Launch of Hypersonic Missile Targeting MSC Ship