Braxton Taylor
The Pentagon has provided more details on its latest strike against Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday, but as the rebel group’s attacks continue, the goal of making the Red Sea safe for merchant ships still seems out of reach.
Major Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Monday that the strike involved 15 Houthi targets across five locations, and those targets included “offensive military capabilities, to include Houthi training and weapons storage facilities.” He said “initial assessments are that we had good effects on that.”
However, the strike involving Navy ships and Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles follows a year of U.S. military operations in the Red Sea aimed at fending off Houthi attacks, yet the rebels have continued to lob missiles and send drones to harass merchant ship traffic.
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The U.S. conducted two other similarly-sized strikes earlier this year, though with the help of allies, in January and February. The January strike hit more than 60 targets at 16 locations controlled by the Iranian-backed militants and the February strike hit 36 Houthi targets across 13 locations in Yemen.
The Houthis, who are an Iranian-backed rebel group within Yemen, claimed at one point to be targeting Israeli-owned or Israel-backed ships in an attempt to aid Hamas, which launched a bloody terrorist attack on Israel in October 2023 and has spent the past year fighting Israel in Gaza.
In reality, though, the attacks appear to be largely indiscriminate, and many of the hit merchant ships either had no connection to Israel or, in one case, was actually bringing aid to Yemen.
The Pentagon has insisted that its preemptive or retaliatory strikes were part of a mission to keep the merchant traffic flowing through the Red Sea.
“Our focus continues to be on enabling freedom of navigation through the Red Sea and these waterways,” Ryder said Monday.
The result has been a period of intense and regular military operations, largely driven by the Navy. Since the Houthis began launching missiles last October, there have been at least 50 preemptive or self-defense strikes against the Houthis and more than 265 thwarted attacks.
The Navy awarded seven of its ships a rare combat action award this spring after they encountered what the service deemed more than 20 instances of combat between October and April — likely making the group among the most battle-tested ships in the modern era.
Despite all the military activity, the results appear to be lackluster.
Shipping data shows that the number of vessels crossing the Suez Canal, a key passage that is near the area of the Red Sea where Houthis are targeting ships, fell by about half at the end of 2023 and has yet to recover to original levels.
Salvatore Mercogliano, a maritime historian and former merchant mariner, told Military.com on Tuesday that despite the fact that “the Houthi attacks are infrequent and seldom effective, with two ships sunk and four mariners killed, [they] have provided enough of a risk to deter shipping companies from risking their high-value ships sailing via the Red Sea.”
Mecogliano said the impact has been that “the Houthis have pinched off 15% of world trade, sending the most valuable ships on a detour that has added time, cost, carbon emissions and risk in sailing in the Southern Ocean during wintertime.”
Despite the fact that merchant shipping has not returned to the Red Sea, Ryder was pretty clear in saying that further escalation of strikes or hostilities against the Houthis is off the table.
“We’re not seeking a full-out war with the Houthis, but we will continue to conduct strikes against the kinds of capabilities that we’ve seen them use against innocent mariners and maritime traffic as well as military vessels,” Ryder said.
But so far there has been little indication that the Houthis will stop the attacks. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout has resumed selling arms after being traded to Russia for captive U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in 2022. His first clients, according to the Journal, are the Houthis.
And Mercogliano is worried about copycats.
“This may be a harbinger of future attacks by other proxies attacking world commerce,” he warned.
Related: Navy Gave Combat Action Ribbon to 7 Ships as More Details of Red Sea Combat Emerge
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