Yemen’s Houthis prepare for a long fight with the US in the Red Sea |

In late January, a US Coast Guard patrol vessel deployed in the Arabian Sea boarded a ship from Iran suspected of transporting advanced weapons and military aid to areas of Yemen controlled by the Houthi movement. Inside, according to the US Central Command (Centcom), more than 200 packages with components to manufacture medium-range missiles and military communication equipment were seized. They also found pieces of underwater drones.

Three weeks later, on February 18, Centcom announced that its naval forces in the Red Sea had destroyed an unmanned underwater vehicle launched by the Houthis; the first detected in the escalation of violence that the region has experienced since November, when this Yemeni Islamist movement began to disrupt navigation through this crucial artery for maritime transport in order to pressure for an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza.

The use of these elusive underwater drones has been interpreted as further evidence that the US military deployment in the area and the attacks it is directing against Yemeni targets are not deterring the group. In this sense, the movement, which has the support of Iran, has reinforced its positions in recent weeks and has adapted its tactics with the apparent intention of posing a long fight with Washington.

The United States’ strategy to stop the Houthis has included designating them as a terrorist organization and new sanctions. Also a strong naval deployment in the Red Sea, to protect commercial shipping, and air and missile attacks, carried out with the United Kingdom and other allied countries, against dozens of military objectives of the movement in Yemen. Since January they have carried out at least four rounds of attacks.

The Houthis, however, have not stopped and since mid-January they have carried out 16 attacks, according to Centcom. Since November they have carried out more than 60. In one of the last, on February 19, they fired two missiles at a Greek-flagged, American-owned ship that was heading to the Yemeni port of Aden to deliver humanitarian aid. The day before, they hit a British-owned, Belizean-flagged ship with missiles, which sank on Saturday with thousands of tons of fertilizer on board.

Trenches and armored tunnels

In the midst of this give and take, the Yemeni group has in recent weeks expanded and armored its trenches and tunnels in the remote and rugged mountains of Hajjah province, northwest of the capital, Sanaa, with the aim of better protecting its military arsenal, especially missiles, and launch attacks from safer positions facing the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, as reported by the Bloomberg agency citing sources on the ground.

The Yemeni group has also used new weapons to expand the typology of its attacks, including underwater drones, which are more difficult to manufacture than aerial ones but cheaper to produce than missiles. They are also more complicated to intercept and threaten the most vulnerable parts of ships. The leader of the Houthis, the secretive Abdelmalik Al Huthi, was recently quoted on a related Yemeni channel predicting that the introduction of this new underwater technology “will worry the enemy.”

The militia has also resorted to greater mobility to avoid US attacks, taking advantage of its lack of good intelligence information. “Since the campaign began [de ataques]”I have not seen a single target different from those that were attacked since 2015 and until the truce with the Saudis,” says Yemeni political analyst Ammar al Aulaqi, referring to the military intervention in Yemen against the Houthis led by Saudi Arabia after the fall of the internationally recognized Government.

The Houthis are taking advantage of their confrontation with the United States and the defense of the Palestinian cause, very popular among Yemenis and throughout the region, to expand their own ranks. Along these lines, since October the group has accelerated its recruitment campaigns and it is estimated that it has enlisted tens of thousands of new combatants. “They are using their fight against the Great Demon, the American forces, to reignite their recruiting rhetoric,” Al-Aulaqi notes.

Iran’s receipt of military aid, for its part, remains largely ongoing. “The only new trend is the increase in vessel seizures by the United States. [Pero] he mode of operation remains the same: small wooden boats, historically used for fishing and transporting goods, used to transport illicit weapons,” says Mohammed al Basha, researcher at the analysis group Novanti.

Doubts about the strategy

Faced with this scenario, senior US officials have admitted in recent days that their strategy has reduced the attacks, but has not stopped them. And its commitment to military means raises doubts from the beginning because it requires a deployment of very expensive troops and weapons compared to the cost of the Yemenis’ drones and missiles.

Gabrielle Reid, associate director of intelligence at the security consultancy S-RM, believes that although US-led airstrikes may temporarily reduce its arsenals of weapons and materiel, “the current strategy is unlikely to fundamentally degrade its capabilities in the next few weeks or months.”

The White House strategy in the Red Sea contrasts with that adopted against militias supported by Iran in Iraq and Syria. There, the United States army, which has troops on the ground, has chosen to kill several commanders of these groups and has managed to stop the attacks against their positions that they had resumed following the Israeli invasion of Gaza.

Washington also points to Tehran as the major supplier of weapons and military technology to the Houthis. But the fear of expanding the conflict towards an escalation that puts the truce with Riyadh at risk is considered to be holding back more aggressive measures. The legal limits on US action and the Houthis’ insistence that they will only stop attacks when Israel ceases its aggression on Gaza raise additional questions.

The Houthi attacks have had a strong impact on maritime transport in the area. Shipping through the Bab el Mandeb Strait, which connects the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean with the Red Sea, has fallen by almost 57%, according to the maritime trade monitoring platform PortWatch, and circulation through the Cape of Good Esperanza, compared to South Africa, has risen more than 100%. Until October, more than 10% of world trade flowed through the Red Sea.

The cutting of submarine cables threatens internet traffic

Hong Kong telecommunications operator HGC said on Monday that at least four of the more than 15 undersea data cables laid in the Red Sea have recently been cut, which could impact 25% of the internet and telecommunications traffic flowing between Asia and Europe through this route.

The reason for the outage, however, is unclear, and the Houthis — whose ability to carry out such an operation is in doubt — have denied involvement. These underwater cables can also be damaged by ship anchors. HGC assured that they have already developed a plan to divert traffic affected by other cables.

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