It was only a matter of time before the Houthis joined the fight in the Israeli-American war with Iran, now entering the fifth week with no end in sight. Quite the reverse, as the rebels add another dimension to the increasingly complicated battlescape.
On Saturday, Houthi forces in Yemen launched two ballistic missiles at southern Israel, the militarily sensitive chunk of Negev desert bordering Gaza and the nuclear site at Dimona. Both projectiles were shot down by Israeli and American air defences.
The success of the Iron Dome missile defence and its radars is little cause for complacency, however. Following the attack, the Houthi deputy information minister, Mohammed Mansour, warned: “We are conducting the battle in stages, and closing the Bab al-Mandeb strait is among our options.”
Reacting to the suggestion that the US was bringing ground troops to the Gulf region, he said “our finger is on the trigger”.
Closing the Bab al-Mandeb, at the southern neck of the Red Sea as it opens to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea, raises the stakes hugely in Iran’s favour. It would mean the closure of a second vital choke point to global shipping in this war, following the Iranian Revolutionary Guard effectively shutting the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf – through which a fifth of all global shipping of oil and gas passes.
The Houthi militia and political movement have wielded military power and political influence quite out of proportion to their size and military strength on paper. For Western governments and intelligence agencies they are still something of a mystery – neither the American and Israeli forces, and Nato analysts seem to know precisely how well they are armed, and what new weapons they have managed to smuggle from Iran or build themselves.
Allies including Britain and France, which supported naval patrols in the Red Sea, have been surprised at the Houthi ingenuity in tactics and weaponry. Their militia has attacked ships with drones, missiles and swarms of speedboats and cutters – some carrying squads of commando boarding parties. The US has struggled to identify the launch sites for the guerrillas’ missile and drone launch sites and training camps.
A security officer on guard as Houthi supporters gather during a rally in solidarity with Iran in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Friday (Photo: Mohammed Huwais / AFP via Getty Images)Much of the Houthi arsenal is Iranian or of Iranian design. Some are of old Soviet, Chinese and Egyptian origin. Among the favourites are the Toufan and Soumar Iranian-designed missiles – often smuggled into Yemen in kit form. They have a range of about 1,100 to 1,200 miles. More common are the Quds 2 missiles with a standard range of about 850 miles, but now believed to have been upgraded with enough range to hit most of southern Israel.
Of more immediate concern is the Houthis’ latest innovations with drones and unmanned weapons, including highly effective sea drones. The Samad-3 and Samad-4 are unmanned loitering drones – meaning they can hang around for hours before lining up on a target – with ranges of about 1,100 miles. The Wa’id drone is the Houthi version of the ubiquitous Iranian Shahed 136, a familiar weapon in Ukraine as well as the latest Iranian war, with a range of more than 1,600 miles.
The use of drones in the troubled waters and choke points of the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Bab al-Mandeb and Hormuz straits, underlines the difficulty now facing any nation with commerce in those waters, including Britain and European allies.
The IRGC – and now the Houthi militia – relies on the threat of mines, as well as sea and air drones that can be launched from bases hundreds of miles distant, and swarms of manned and unmanned attack launches.
As one senior British officer observed this weekend, this is a “new era of warfare” and “any attempt to maintain navigation in the Straits of Hormuz will require the use of remote controlled and robotic systems”.
The Houthis’ ranks have swelled from 100,000 in 2010 to around 350,000 by 2024.
The Houthis – a neo-Shiite Muslim movement that emerged from Yemen’s mountainous north – began a full-blown rebellion in 2011, and by 2015 had taken over the capital Sanaa, and ousted the government there.
They declared war in support of Hamas in Gaza after 7 October 2023, and managed to close the Bab al-Mandeb, or “Gate of Tears”, to most international shipping. Some 17 per cent of global commercial shipping passes through the strait and through the Red Sea and Suez Canal.
Firmly allied to Iran, they battled remnants of the old government backed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE – the latter quitting the fight two years ago. Meanwhile, more than half Yemen’s 34 million population have faced destitution and starvation. By last year, over half the population, or 19 million, depended on aid for food, medicine and water – Sanaa itself is threatened by total drought.
Since November 2023, the Houthis have attacked more than 200 ships in the Red Sea.
The situation had been easing lately, but after the launch of the missiles at Israel, the Houthi Information Bureau announced on social media that any ally of Israel and the US, and supporters of their war, would be attacked.
Trump’s team seems on the point of escalating with the deployment of thousands of US Marines and 82nd Airborne paratroopers to the Gulf. Summoning the buzzword for the wars of choice from Vietnam to Afghanistan, critics say this is “mission creep”. It is doubtful that a US force of 10,000, a large brigade or so, could take and hold Kharg Island, Larak and Hormuz at the narrowest point of the Strait, for long. They would need to be reinforced or pulled out within a few weeks.
It’s beginning to look as if Trump’s Israeli-led US “excursion” to fight iron is going to be a long war. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Houthi militia appear to be betting on it.
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