The Strikes Against Houthis

The United States and Britain launched strikes against 36 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday, in the second day of major U.S. operations against Iran-linked groups following a deadly attack on American troops last weekend.

The strikes hit buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems, launchers and other capabilities the Houthis have used to attack Red Sea shipping, the Pentagon said, adding it targeted 13 locations across the country.

On Friday, the U.S. carried out the first wave of that retaliation, striking in Iraq and Syria against more than 85 targets linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and militias it backs, reportedly killing nearly 40 people.

While Washington accuses Iran-backed militias of attacking U.S. troops at bases in Iraq, Syria and Jordan, Yemen’s Iran-linked Houthis have been regularly targeting commercial ships and warships in the Red Sea.

The Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen, say their attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians as Israel strikes Gaza. But the U.S. and its allies characterizes them as indiscriminate and a menace to global trade.

How ships are avoiding Houthi attacks in the Red Sea

Faced with mounting Red Sea violence, major shipping lines have largely abandoned the critical trade route for longer routes around Africa. This has increased costs, feeding worries about global inflation while sapping Egypt of crucial foreign revenue from shippers sailing the Suez Canal to or from the Red Sea.

The U.S. has carried out more than a dozen strikes against Houthi targets in the past several weeks, but these have failed to stop attacks by the group.

Major shipping companies have stopped using the Red Sea route since then.

Almost 15% of global seaborne trade usually passes through the Red Sea, and companies are instead opting to take a much longer route around southern Africa.

In UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s statement on 12 January, which announced the UK’s first strikes against the Houthis, he cited the group’s “dangerous and destabilizing attacks”. Sunak said these attacks threaten lives and are “causing major disruption to a vital trade route and driving up commodity prices”.

Who are the Houthis?

The Houthis are a minority group of Yemenis from the mountainous north-west of the country.

They take their name from their movement’s founder, Hussein Al-Houthi. They fought several wars against Yemen’s strongman ruler in the early 2000s and then, after he was deposed by the Arab Spring protests, they marched down to the capital, Sana’a, and seized power in 2014. The previously deposed President Saleh, still bitter at being ousted, put his loyal Republican Guard at their disposal, enabling them to take over 80% of Yemen’s population.

The Houthis then promptly assassinated him.

Since the Houthis seized power, Yemen, already the poorest Arab nation, has been torn apart by a catastrophic civil war.

The Houthis – most of whom follow the Zaidi branch of Shia Islam in Sunni-majority Yemen – represent only around 15% of Yemenis yet they consider themselves the rightful rulers.

An estimated 150,000 people have been killed, along with millions made dependent on food aid. For seven years the Houthis survived a massive and ultimately fruitless coalition air campaign to oust them, led by the Saudis who were alarmed at the Houthis’ links to their arch-rival, Iran.

“Demonstrating resilience from 2015 to 2022, they effectively thwarted the Saudi-led coalition’s attempt to reinstate the internationally recognised government in Sana’a.”

From mid-November 2023 onwards, the Houthis have used their substantial arsenal of missiles and drones to target shipping passing close to the narrow, strategic chokepoint of the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait.

The Rising Tensions

Their stated aim was to attack any vessel with Israeli links, in support of Hamas, vowing to continue their attacks until Israel ends its own assault on Gaza. When US and British warships came to the defense of container vessels steaming past Yemen’s Red Sea the Houthis directed their attacks on the warships, losing three of their speedboats and 10 sailors in a one-sided engagement with the US Navy.

Despite that loss, attacking the US Navy and Royal Navy, says Mohammed Al-Basha, “underscores the Houthis’ prevailing sense of triumph and fosters euphoric hubris within their ranks… leading some members of the group to perceive divine intervention and a historic alignment in their favor.”

The action, carried out by the US and the UK alongside their allies, has been described by Washington and London as a way to “degrade” the group’s capabilities to attack shipping vessels in the Red Sea.

Addressing the current landscape in the region, Schenker says shipping traffic in the Suez Canal is “down 50%”.

“Something has to be done about the Houthis,” he warns, adding that “this is just a start, quite frankly”.

Iran is backing them to the hilt and they will not back down or be deterred. So I think it is incumbent on the administration to continue to work to degrade their capability to disrupt this global shipping and to fire missiles, drones, rockets at Israel.”

David Schenker, former US assistant secretary of state

But Schenker adds the US “can’t just go after the proxies and not after the patron”, referring to Iran.

So far, the US has targeted militias and groups affiliated to Iran in Syria, Iraq and Yemen – but not in Iran’s territory.