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Since November last year, Yemen’s Houthi militia has been attacking merchant ships in the Red Sea, a narrow body of water between Africa and Asia that links to the Mediterranean Sea and Europe through the Suez Canal, and provides a crucial trade corridor that allows ships on east-west routes to avoid the long voyage around the African continent.
The attacks have raised concerns over potential disruptions to global supply chains, and shipping firms have been reported to be weighing the difficult choice between paying significantly higher insurance premiums on the risky Red Sea route and taking the longer and costlier way around the Cape of Good Hope.
A US-led force has been deployed in the Red Sea, and American warships have attacked and sunk Houthi vessels, but the dangers to shipping have persisted. The Houthis have targeted their attacks on certain kinds of ships such as automobile carriers, but have generally left oil tankers alone.
Essentially in support of Hamas, the Palestinian group against which Israel has been carrying out a punishing operation in the Gaza Strip.
Since the start of the war, provoked by the October 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel, the Houthis have launched more than 15 attacks on international vessels in the Red Sea, using drones and rockets fired from land. In November, the Houthis claimed they had captured an Israeli cargo vehicle. They have said that the attacks against interests aligned with Israel and the US would continue.
The Houthis are a militant group backed and armed by Iran, who have been fighting a protracted civil war in Yemen. The Houthis have links with Hamas, and are believed by some to have helped plan the October 7 attacks. However, Hamas are Sunni, while the Houthis, like the regime in Tehran as well as Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group in Lebanon, are Shia.
Between 2000 and 2016, merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden (into which the Red Sea opens in the south through the Bab al-Mandab Strait), Guardafui Channel (at the tip of the Horn of Africa) and the Somali Sea were under constant threat from Somali pirates.
Unlike the attacks by the Houthis, the Somali pirate actions had no overt political agenda or goals, and were essentially hijackings for ransom. Gangs of young Somali men with light arms would try to board ships and commandeer them. If they managed to seize control, they would negotiate a ransom for the release of the vessel. They would generally not be violent with the ship’s crew, and would work through negotiators who were often on land in or around Somalia.
After 2016, there was a significant decline in piracy. Combined efforts by the international community in terms of military cooperation and intelligence-sharing helped reduce the risks. The Indian Navy also sent some warships to the region.
“From 2016 to 2022 there were no pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden area, and from being an HRA (High Risk Area) it had been designated an HSA (Heightened Security Area). While armed guards were still escorting merchant vessels, incidents and risks had come down to a minimum, also due to NATO and the French Navy and Army destroying everything related to piracy attacks in Somalia,” a former Merchant Navy officer told The Indian Express.
