US and British forces are no longer allowed to pass through the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait chokepoint linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, Yemen’s Houthis have announced.
“The US and UK forces can no longer pass through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait,” Houthi Political Bureau member Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said, his comments picked up by Iranian media on Tuesday.
“The Axis of Resistance has regained control over the region. The Americans will regret their acts of aggression against Yemen and they will be a loser,” Bukhaiti added, referencing the January 12-13 US-UK cruise missile and air strikes inside Yemen, which involved over 100 munitions “of various types” fired against over 60 targets, killing at least six militiamen.
Bukhaiti assured that the Houthis retain the capability to confront Washington and to stop American and Israeli ships from passing through the Red Sea, and warned that the militia is growing its missile capabilities and will ‘bring new surprises soon’. He did not elaborate.
The Houthis have already shown that the US attacks have not left them powerless, targeting a US-owned container ship, the Gibraltar Eagle, with a ballistic missile off the Yemeni coast in the Gulf of Aden on Monday, and attempting a precision strike against the USS Laboon missile destroyer a day earlier. CENTCOM – the US combatant command responsible for American military operations in the Middle East, confirmed Monday that the Gibraltar Eagle had been struck, but indicated that the vessel “reported no injuries or significant damage and is continuing its journey.”
The Houthis have listed all US and British warships taking part in the campaign against them as “hostile targets.” The militia launched a campaign of hijackings, missile and drone attacks against Israeli-owned or linked ships in the Red Sea in November, in solidarity with Gazans amid the ongoing Israeli military campaign in the Palestinian enclave.
The Houthi campaign has led to a 300%+ jump in international shipping costs and driven up insurance prices as insurers have introduced a 1% “war insurance” premium, with major shipping companies forced to take the long way around Africa on routes from Asia to Europe. The Red Sea crisis has reportedly contributed to a 1.3 percent drop in world trade last month.
Washington assembled a new ‘coalition of the willing’ for its anti-Houthi campaign in December, with the UK, Denmark and Greece committing warships, but other US allies, including the Netherlands, Norway, Australia and Canada sending only handfuls of ship-less seamen, and major NATO naval powers France, Italy and Spain pulling out completely.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned on Monday that tensions in the Red Sea and the region generally have now reached “sky-high” levels and “may soon be impossible to contain.”