Attacks from the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen against ships in the Red Sea have continued despite the formation of a naval coalition by President Joe Biden to deter the attacks.
Numerous intelligence officials from various countries told The Wall Street Journal late last week that Iran was providing the Houthis with “real-time intelligence and weaponry, including drones and missiles” to carry out the attacks.
Iran’s paramilitary forces have a surveillance vessel in the Red Sea that is directly feeding intelligence to the Houthis so that they can coordinate their attacks on ships passing through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, according to the officials. The attacks started just a couple of weeks after Hamas, an Iranian-backed terrorist group inside Gaza, launched an attack against Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 Israelis.
The attacks have forced many ships to avoid using the Suez Canal and instead use much longer routes around the southern tip of Africa, which can add weeks to their journey and greatly increase costs which are then passed on to consumers.
Biden launched Operation Prosperity Guardian last week, a coalition of 20 countries that were going to provide resources to help deter attacks on commercial ships in the region. However, that coalition has started to show cracks as many of the countries are not supplying ships or other major assets while the countries that are do not want their assets to be under U.S. control.
The effort from Biden has done little to deter the Houthis and Iran as ships have continued to come under attack, including on Friday, when the Houthis fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles into international shipping lanes in the Red Sea, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
“Between 3 and 8 p.m. (Sanaa time), the USS LABOON (DDG 58) was patrolling in the Southern Red Sea as part of Operation PROSPERITY GUARDIAN (OPG) and shot down four unmanned aerial drones originating from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen that were inbound to the USS LABOON,” CENTCOM said.
“At approximately 8 p.m. (Sanaa time), U.S. Naval Forces Central Command received reports from two ships in the Southern Red Sea that they were under attack,” the statement continued. “The M/V BLAAMANEN, a Norwegian-flagged, owned, and operated chemical/oil tanker, reported a near miss of a Houthi one-way attack drone with no injuries or damage reported. A second vessel, the M/V SAIBABA, a Gabon-owned, Indian-flagged crude oil tanker, reported that it was hit by a one-way attack drone with no injuries reported. The USS LABOON (DDG 58) responded to the distress calls from these attacks.”