The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) defeats a combination of Houthi missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles in the Red Sea, Oct. 19, 2023. (Aaron Lau/U.S. Navy)
The United States, attempting to contain the spread of Israel’s war in Gaza, is pitching allies on expanding a multinational naval task force to address an alarming rise in attacks on commercial vessels traveling near Yemen that have posed a significant threat to global shipping.
The White House says it’s a “natural response” after the Houthis, a Yemeni militant group aligned with Iran, has fired missiles and one-way drones at several ships and hijacked at least one in recent weeks. But it remains unclear whether the United States and its partners will be able to deter the Houthis or tamp down Israel’s demands for forceful action. Measures such as military strikes or designating the Houthis as terrorists could complicate efforts by the United Nations, the United States and the others to end a disastrous civil conflict in Yemen.
The Houthi attacks have underscored broader outrage across the Middle East over Israel’s assault on Gaza. The campaign has leveled neighborhoods, killed about 18,000 people and triggered a humanitarian disaster, prompting a wave of retaliatory attacks on U.S. and Israeli interests in the region.
On Saturday, the Houthis declared they would target any ship that travels to Israel and does not stop in Gaza to deliver humanitarian aide. Ships with no ties to Israel or that do not travel there will be permitted to pass, the group said.
Israeli National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had spoken about the Houthi threat with President Biden and the leaders of Germany, France and Britain, telling them that “Israel is giving the world time to organize and prevent it.”
“If there is no international organization — because this is a global problem — we’ll work to remove the maritime closure,” he told Israel’s Channel 12. He did not respond to a question about whether he was referring to military action.
The Biden administration’s plan is to expand Combined Task Force 153, a military unit focused on the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, said a senior administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss government deliberations. It’s part of the Combined Maritime Forces, a group with 39 member nations and headquartered in Bahrain.
CTF-153 is led by a U.S. Navy officer, but the responsibility changes hands. An Egyptian commander oversaw it previously. The unit reports to the commander of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, who also is based in Bahrain.
Many countries have an interest in preventing a disruption of commercial shipping through this part of the world, a point administration officials have stressed to other nations as talks progress, said a U.S. defense official familiar with the issue. The official described the effort as mostly “aspirational” with an unclear timeline thus far as allies and partners assess how they might participate.
The senior administration official disputed that characterization, saying discussions are active.
“Our focus,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at the White House on Thursday, “is ensuring that there are sufficient military assets in place to deter these Houthi threats to maritime trade in the Red Sea and in the surrounding waters to the global economy writ large. ... We’ve actually heard some interest from several key partners.”
He did not identify any of the other “like-minded” nations. The Pentagon said Thursday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had spoken with Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, Khalid bin Salman, “to discuss Houthi threats to freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.” Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has had a similar conversation with his French counterpart, and on Saturday a French vessel downed two drones purportedly launched from Yemen.
Using a maritime security force to protect the region’s waterways is a good idea, said Mick Mulroy, a Pentagon official during the Trump administration with extensive experience in the Middle East. But finding enough ships to effectively carry it out could be challenge, he assessed.
“The U.S. could do a lot of it but may need to shift ships from other areas,” he said.
The Houthis, a rebel group from northern Yemen, seized the country’s capital in 2014 and deposed the government, triggering a civil war that has killed tens of thousands and caused one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises. Analysts say Iran’s ties to the Houthis strengthened over the course of the conflict, as Tehran became a critical source of weapons and financing for the militants.
The movement’s leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, warned days after the Hamas cross-border attack that triggered Israel’s assault that his fighters would retaliate if “red lines” were crossed, including if the United States intervened in Gaza — actions that would be met, he said, by “missile strikes, drones and military options,” according to the Houthi-run Masirah news channel. He acknowledged “coordinating” with other Iranian-backed groups in the region, and said, “we are ready to intervene with all we can.”
His threat, at the time, may have been overlooked. Global attention was focused on an imminent Israeli ground invasion of Gaza and fears about a widening of the conflict in southern Lebanon as well as in Syria and Iraq, where other Iranian proxies are located. On Oct. 19, the Houthis launched the first of its recent attacks: cruise missiles aimed at Israel that were shot down by the USS Carney, a Navy destroyer in the Red Sea.
On Nov. 19, the Houthis hijacked a commercial vessel, the Galaxy Leader, in the Red Sea and took 25 crew members hostage.
A week later, the USS Mason, another Navy destroyer, responded to a distress call in the Gulf of Aden from a commercial vessel, the M/V Central Park, as five armed men attempted to seize the ship, officials said. They were captured by U.S. personnel. Pentagon officials have said they think the men were Somali, but have not clarified whether that is the case. Hours later, at least one ballistic missile was launched from Yemen in the direction of the Mason and the Central Park, defense officials have said.
The Carney downed an unmanned aircraft emanating from Yemen again on Nov. 29 as it headed for the warship, though it was not clear how the drone was to be used, defense officials have said.
Earlier this month, Houthi forces launched four attacks against three commercial ships in the Red Sea. Ballistic missiles hit the M/V Unity Explorer, the M/V Number 9 and the M/V Sophie II, defense officials have said. The Carney, which responded to related distress calls, also shot down an unmanned aircraft.
The Houthis appear to have calculated that there are more benefits than risks associated with their attacks, analysts said, staking a position that resonates with overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian sentiment in Yemen, and one that bolsters the movement’s standing and recognition in the region, including among Iranian-backed groups.
Among those groups, the Houthis are possibly the least constrained, having no political partners to answer to, or any rival military force.
“They don’t have a lot of pressure inside,” Mustapha Noman, a Yemeni analyst, writer and former diplomat, said at a Chatham House briefing on Yemen on Friday. “I think they dream that the Americans or the Israelis attack them, because that will turn them into a real ‘resistance’ force,” he said.
The Houthi attacks — and any response to them from the United States and its allies — could also help quiet domestic complaints the Houthis faced over their failure to provide services and other benefits to the public.
“At war, people do not ask for anything,” he said. The Houthis “can do whatever they want.”
The situation has left the United States with limited options, said Gregory D. Johnsen, a nonresident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. The Trump administration had designated the Houthis a foreign terrorist organization, but the Biden administration rolled that back in part because it would have limited the ability to ease the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, he said.
“They’re not quite a nation-state. They’re not quite a terrorist group,” Johnsen said. “They’re sort of this hybrid mixture. The U.S. is obviously wary of getting pulled into any sort of military conflict, but if the U.S. doesn’t do anything, then the Houthis are likely to continue escalating, as they have been over the last two months.”
Asked on Thursday if Biden was reconsidering delisting the Houthis as a terrorist group, Kirby said “we are going to review that decision.”
Saudi Arabia — the Houthis’ adversary throughout the civil war — was paradoxically one of the few countries that might have leverage with the Yemeni militants, as the two parties negotiate the terms of a cease-fire that both badly want, said Farea al-Muslimi, a research fellow at Chatham House focusing on Yemen and the Persian Gulf.
But the Saudis were possibly the more desperate party, wanting to extricate themselves from a war that damaged its international reputation, threatened its ambitious domestic agenda and delivered none of the desired results, including destroying or even degrading the Houthis.
“They are quite confident that no matter how much they escalate, this will not hurt their arrangement with the Saudis,” Muslimi said, referring to the Houthis.
In Sanaa, the Houthi-controlled capital, some residents suggested that the end of Israel’s offensive was the only solution.
“What is happening in Palestine is a major crime and must not be tolerated,” said Ridhwan Mohammed bin Mohammed, 48, a warehouse manager. “We do not care about any reaction from America or Israel.”
Fahim reported from Beirut.
