US seeks more partners to combat Houthi attacks in the Red Sea

The United States needs more partner countries to join the fight against Yemen-backed Houthi rebels targeting commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Daniel Shapiro, said Dec. 8 at the IISS Manama Security Dialogues.“We need other countries to step forward,” he said on stage at the dialogues in Bahrain.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels have reportedly attacked more than 130 merchant ships in the Red Sea, the Bab al Mandab Strait, and the Gulf of Aden off Yemen’s coast since the Israel-Hamas war broke out Oct. 7, 2023, claiming to support Palestinians. Insurance costs and freight rates have shot up for shipping and energy companies that have altered routes to sail around Africa to avoid the attacks, which has added more ton-mile demand and bunker consumption.Previous attempts to bring more Arab partners into the fight from President Joe Biden’s special envoy to Yemen Timothy Lenderking have largely fallen on deaf ears. Lenderking told the Washington Post in November that he had approached the Egyptians, Saudis and other Arab partners to do more to hamper Houthi attacks…The international military response has included several multinational naval missions and military strikes against ground targets in Yemen carried out by Israel, the UK and the US.

“The long and the short of it is, it’s just not enough,” Wolf-Christian Paes, a senior fellow for armed conflict at IISS and one of the report’s authors told S&P Global Commodity Insights.

The resilience of the global shipping industry and supply chains to adjust to the Houthi attacks has been stronger than many expected. While the number transits through the Red Sea has been roughly cut in half, many vessels rerouted around the Cape of Good hope. That’s affected ports in Israel, Jordan, Saudia Arabia, and Sudan, with Egypt being particularly hard hit.Cash-strapped and facing high currency devaluation, Egypt’s revenues from the Suez Canal have also been heavily degraded, losing at least $2 billion. The north African country has been procuring fuel oil to meet domestic demand requirements and optimize its volumes as global gas and LNG prices remained elevated compared to alternative fuels, S&P Global reported Dec. 6.

“Countries of the Red Sea and the seafaring nations of this region are among those most affected by this outrageous behavior, so we certainly need many other countries to step forward,” Shapiro said.