Britain and America are considering ordering air strikes on missile launch sites in Yemen, as the Houthi rebels threaten to escalate their attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea.
This week the US announced a new maritime task force of ten nations to counter the wave of attacks by Houthi drones, missiles and command squads on shipping in the Red Sea and the waters south of the Bab al Mandeb narrows. The American-led force for Operation Protective Guardian has been joined the Navy’s Type 45 Destroyer HMS Diamond, which shot down a drone attack earlier this week.
At the weekend the US Navy reported shooting down 14 Houthi attack drones in one wave. Some of the Iranian designed drones would cost $2,000 – whereas the missiles used to counter them cost about two million dollars.
US and British military chiefs have been surprised by both the quantity and quality of the missiles and weapons used by the Houthis. The Houthi militias, engaged in a deadly civil war in their country for the past eight years, began their offensive following the eruption of war between Israel and Hamas on October 7.
In the past month and a half they have launched more than 500 attacks. Last month a missile hit and caused a fire aboard a Norwegian tanker. On 18th December the Swan Atlantic, a freighter, was hit and set on fire, though successfully escorted to port.
On November 19 a commando squad of Houthis seized the roll on – roll off freighter Galaxy leader, and forced it into port at al Hudaydah, where the 25 crew from a number of nations are being detained still.
British aircraft are likely to work with US, and possibly French forces in strikes on Houthi military bases. The US aircraft carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower is standing off the Yemen coast in the Arabian Sea. The UK would likely launch strikes from Cyprus.
The Houthis say they are attacking any ships heading for Israel, or with Israeli ownership – though almost none of their targets have had any Israeli connection. Their immediate demand is for a ceasefire in Gaza and for aid to be rushed in.
“The Houthi escalation in the Red Sea will stop when the Israeli war on the people of Gaza stops,” the Houthi spokesman Abdullah Ben Ame said on Arab television in the past few days. Another official warned that if the allies attacked Houthi bases they “turn Gaza into an international conflagration.”
Three of the new types of Iranian ballistic missiles now with the Houthis have ranges between 500 kilometers and 1500 – roughly one thousand miles. So far, according to weapons analysts, they have shown poor skills at targeting – but even so the effect has been devastating. In just over a month shipping through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea has fallen by 87% -- according to shipping authorities.
Approximately 12 % of global maritime trade takes this route. In the past week six global freighter companies, led by Maersk, and BP have announced their won’t take the Red Sea route and move between Europe and Asia via the Cape of Good Hope, adding nearly a week to their passage.
The Houthi offensive is part of the “Axis of Resistance” sponsored by Iran. This has brought a renewed wave of attacks on allied observation posts and training facilities across Iraq and Syria. There have been over a one hundred attacks on these posts in the past six weeks, according to allied military sources, 30 on bases where British staff were present. “It’s a miracle no one has been killed,” said one official. “The luck may not last.”
Despite the increase of British military activity in the Gulf, Red Sea and Eastern Mediterranean – with up to a dozen ships now deployed, a Royal Marine commando – or battalion – in Cyprus, British diplomats and military chiefs insist that support for Ukraine must continue. “Things may be tough now with the winter, but we think we may be getting over the worst after the summer,” one source said.
Though the summer offensive was a disappointment, Putin can’t yet declare victory in the opinion of British and American military chiefs. “But Europe must get its act together,” said a Whitehall source. As further funding from the US government and the EU stalls, plans are being considered to draw down from the roughly $300 billion of Russian deposits frozen in Western banks following the invasion of Ukraine last year.
This raises several tricky aspects of international law. “The problem is that the Russian economy is actually growing, largely thanks to the high prices for oil. Putin, has bent the budget completely out of shape with the huge public expenditure on defence, and this can’t last,” the Whitehall source added. “But we need another, tough round of sanctions right away.”
