2023-12-18 04:20:00
Sailors assigned to the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) stand guard in the ship’s Combat Information Center during an operation to defeat a combination of Houthi missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (EUROPA PRESS/FILE)
The United States warned Yemen’s Houthi insurgency that it is contemplating a wide range of strategies to stop its attacks against ships crossing the Red Sea, where commercial transit is now practically paralyzed by its drone attacks as a gesture of support for the terrorist group Hamas in its war against Israel.
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“All options are on the table,” warned a US State Department official on condition of anonymity to the Emirati newspaper The National. “These attacks are directly affecting more than a dozen countries and crews and ships around the world,” he added.
Without going any further, this past Saturday the commercial giants MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co. SA and the Compagnie Maritime d’Affrètement and Compagnie Générale Maritime (CMA-CGM) announced the withdrawal of their ships from the Red Sea route, following in the footsteps of other large companies such as Maersk, given the threat posed by insurgency attacks: the American destroyer ‘USS Carney’ destroyed, just yesterday, 14 unmanned aircraft launched by the Houthis.
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In this sense, anonymous sources from the Department of Defense confirmed that in recent days the Pentagon moved the Strike Group led by the aircraft carrier ‘Dwight D. Eisenhower’ from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Yemen, to support a potential US attack against the insurgency.
The US warned that “all options are on the table” to stop Houthi attacks in the Red Sea (AP/FILE)
The Biden Administration was reluctant to respond militarily to Houthi attacks on commercial shipping for fear of provoking Iran, which backs Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as the insurgents themselves in Yemen. The Pentagon had previously recommended the administration refrain from using this option, according to these sources.
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Who did speak openly, also to The National, was the US special envoy for the Gulf, Tim Lenderking, who warned that the Houthi attacks are about to derail the fragile peace process in Yemen, a country devastated for almost a decade. of war between the insurgents and the Yemeni government.
“Iran-backed Houthi attacks on international shipping threaten nearly two years of joint progress in peace efforts in Yemen,” Lenderking lamented about an initiative that, in its best moments, represented a historic rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia. great ally of the Yemeni Government, characterized by the cessation of hostilities in much of the country and the exchange of prisoners of war.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have stepped up attacks on ships crossing the Red Sea amid the war between Israel and Hamas, raising concerns about the impact on the flow of oil, grain and consumer goods through a major artery. global trade.
Ships linked to Israel have been attacked, but the threat to trade has increased this week when a Norwegian-flagged oil tanker was attacked and missiles were fired at a ship carrying jet fuel towards the Suez Canal, through which it passes around 10 % of world trade.
The Red Sea has the Suez Canal at its northern end and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at its southern end, which flows into the Gulf of Aden. It is a busy waterway with ships passing through the Suez Canal to transport goods between Asia and Europe.
A lot of Europe’s energy supplies, such as oil and diesel, come through that waterway, said John Stawpert, senior director of environment and trade at the International Chamber of Shipping, which represents 80% of the fleet. global trade.
The same goes for food products like palm oil and grains and anything else brought in on container ships, which make up the majority of the world’s manufactured goods.
(With information from Europa Press)
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