Huthi attacks force ships to make costly detour

ATTACKS by Huthi rebels in Yemen have forced three-fourths of US-flagged ships to avoid the Red Sea and instead take the long and expensive detour around the southern tip of Africa, the US national security advisor said Sunday.

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"Seventy-five percent of our US flag shipping now has to go around the southern coast of Africa rather than going through the Suez Canal,” Mike Waltz told CBS's Face the Nation.

He added: “The last time one of our destroyers went through the straits there, it was attacked 23 times.”

Recent US airstrikes against the Iran-backed rebels - the first since President Donald Trump took office in January - have “taken out key Huthi leadership,’ including the head of their missile programme, Waltz said.

“We've hit their headquarters. We've hit communications nodes, weapons factories, and even some of their over-the-water drone production facilities”