The Houthi threat to global shipping

Amidst the unpredictable arc of crisis shadowing the Middle East, the systemic and sustained Houthi campaign against vessels in the Red Sea persist.

- John J Metzler

The Houthis are a shadowy but lethal Iranian proxy force, the Houthis, who use their control of mountainous parts of the Yemeni coast to launch missile, drone and speedboat attacks on vital shipping lanes connecting the Mediterranean with the Gulf of Aden.

Though the assaults started in 2023 in solidarity with the Hamas terror onslaught against Israel, the Houthi militants have widened their raids to attack unarmed merchant ships and US Navy protection vessels. Last week, Houthi cruise missiles and drones were unsuccessfully fired at the US aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman, underscoring the expanding scope of the conflict.

The Red Sea remains a maritime bottleneck for shipping. Between Suez in the north and the Bab el-Mandab channel in the south, the waterway passes six countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti and Yemen. Three of these states are unstable, yet the lawless Yemeni coast in the southern region poses the current maritime threat.

The Houthis have targeted dozens of merchant ships with missiles, drones and small boat attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They have sunk two vessels, seized a third, and killed four crew members. Recently, they unsuccessfully fired four ballistic missiles at Israel.