Until last week, the damage wrought by the campaign of attacks Yemen’s Houthis have been waging against shipping in the Red Sea has been mostly measured in dollars and cents. Cargo ships have made long, expensive detours around the Cape of Good Hope; a Tesla factory in Germany halted production thanks to a shortage of parts; Egypt’s cash-strapped government is struggling with the loss of Suez Canal transit fees as ships avoid the Red Sea.
But the crisis took a serious and deadly turn over the past week. Last Saturday, for the first time, the Houthis sank a ship. The tanker Rubymar was struck by a Houthi missile on February 18, and finally sank after weeks of taking on water. In the process of sinking, the Rubymar’s anchor likely damaged three key underwater telecommunications cables in the Red Sea, according to US officials. Meanwhile, the Rubymar’s cargo of 21,000 metric tons of fertilizer threatens to cause an environmental disaster.
Then on Wednesday, three sailors were killed in a missile strike on the container ship True Confidence, some 50 miles off the Yemeni coast. They were the first reported fatalities caused by the Houthi attacks.
The Houthis’ Red Sea campaign is already the most disruptive, consequential, and attention-grabbing of the actions taken by the so-called “Axis of Resistance” of Iranian-backed proxy groups since the war in Gaza began in October. The Houthis have continued their attacks even as other Iran-backed groups have appeared to pull back, wary of a direct military confrontation with the United States. Several rounds of US-led airstrikes have also failed to deter the group.
So what do they really want? And what would make them stop?
The Houthis’ stated goal for their campaign is to disrupt trade linked to Israel and its backers, in solidarity with the people of Gaza. (Notably, though, many of the ships targeted have had few if any links to Israel and the actual Israeli economy has seen relatively little impact….
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