Attacks on Houthi militia targets in Yemen bring Red Sea closer to abyss

Tension and uncertainty in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa regions is growing rapidly due to a combination of military movements, threats to global maritime trade, territorial disputes, diplomatic maneuvers and humanitarian crises that bring this small but precious strategic space closer to the abyss. . The risk of escalation has increased significantly after, late on Thursday – early morning this Friday in Spain – the United States and the United Kingdom attacked Houthi rebel targets in Yemen from the air, in an attempt to reduce their capabilities. military, according to Washington, which since December has led an international naval force deployed in the southern Red Sea, in which Spain has declined to participate. Since November, the Yemeni fundamentalist militia has threatened ships transiting those waters transporting around 12% of world trade through the Suez Canal.

This military response, which has hit 60 targets of the Yemeni rebels, including the strategic port of Al Hodeida, occurred after, on Tuesday, the Yemeni movement, which has the support of Iran and controls 30% of the territory of the country, will launch its largest attack against ships in the Red Sea to date. Days before, the naval coalition baptized as Guardian of Prosperity had declared that it would make the Houthis assume the consequences of continuing to disrupt maritime traffic in those waters.

Since mid-November, and in response to the devastating Israeli offensive in Gaza, the Houthi movement has been attacking merchant ships supposedly linked – sometimes wrongly – to Israel. These actions have pushed the largest shipping companies in the world to avoid these waters, although this means circumnavigating Africa, which has made freight costs 170% more expensive.

So far, the Houthis have carried out 27 attacks, according to the US Central Command (CENTCOM). The impact on maritime traffic is evident: the average number of ships that crossed Bab El Mandeb – the strait through which the Red Sea is accessed – each week fell by 45% compared to a year before and in the Suez Canal it it did by 28%, according to the maritime trade monitoring platform PortWatch. Traffic at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa rose 63% in the same period.

The attack against Houthi targets in Yemen, which occurred the day after Iran captured an oil tanker in the nearby Gulf of Oman, has already sparked the first reactions in the region. Saudi Arabia, which has been negotiating a definitive ceasefire for months with the Houthi militia, its enemy in the nine years of the Yemen war, has called for restraint and “avoiding an escalation.” The rebels' response has been the launch of a barrage of cruise and ballistic missiles against US and UK warships in the Red Sea, Efe has reported, citing militia sources.

Pirates

Added to these attacks against Yemeni militia ships in nearby waters is the threat of piracy. On January 4, an organization associated with the Royal Navy reported that it had received a report of an assault by a group of pirates on a merchant ship sailing off the coast of Somalia, prompting a contingent to intervene. of the Indian Navy.

An official from the International Maritime Office, of the International Chamber of Commerce in London, informed EL PAÍS by email of another similar incident in mid-December. Before these two events, the last attack by pirates occurred in 2018. Some analysts believe that the diversion of some maritime traffic to those waters due to the threat of the Houthis, and the greater military attention that the Red Sea now receives, could be encouraging some uptick in hacking incidents.

Throughout the Horn of Africa, on the southern shore of the Red Sea, internal tension has also increased following the signing, on January 2, of a preliminary agreement between Ethiopia, the most populous landlocked country in the world, and Somaliland, a self-proclaimed republic northwest of Somalia, from which it became independent de facto in 1991. This territory has remained stable since then, but has not achieved international recognition.

The document, pending ratification, grants Ethiopia commercial and military exit and access to the strategic Gulf of Aden, which connects with the Red Sea through the Strait of Bab El Mandeb, through the territory of Somaliland, in exchange for recognizing its independence. . That commitment has triggered tension between Ethiopia and Somalia, whose federal government has called it unauthorized, void and an act of aggression to which it reserves the right to respond. The Somali Executive, immersed in a war against the Al Shabab insurgency affiliated with al-Qaeda, has announced the withdrawal of its ambassador in Ethiopia.

The agreement has also been criticized by Egypt and Eritrea, which maintain tense relations with Ethiopia and are suspicious of its ambitions in the Red Sea. Djibouti, through whose ports Ethiopia now channels more than 95% of its imports and exports in exchange for lucrative fees, has also demanded to respect the sovereignty of Somalia, as have the United States, the European Union and the Arab League. Ethiopia lost access to the coast after Eritrea seceded in 1993 following its war of independence.

“Countries in the region have begun to align around this crisis, and Somalia has asked Egypt and Eritrea for support. Given the history of proxy wars in the Horn of Africa, the prospect of this leading to regional confrontation is considerable,” said Samira Gaid, a regional analyst at Mogadishu-based consultancy Balqiis.

The war in Sudan

The multiplication of crises in the region includes that of neighboring Sudan, plunged into a war since April between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. After taking control of almost the entire western region of Darfur and the capital, Khartoum, the paramilitaries seized a key province in the center of the country in December, putting them in an advantageous position to decide whether to push east. , heading towards the coast.

If they choose to move in that direction, and given the large mobilization there of armed groups and civilians fearful of the paramilitaries, many fear that the conflict could degenerate into a more atomized total war, with the risk of turning Sudan into a state. failed. The most conservative calculations already place the death toll at at least 12,000, and the country is suffering the worst displacement crisis in the world, with more than seven million.

In recent weeks, the commander of the paramilitaries, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has also embarked on an unusual diplomatic tour, which many suspect has been sponsored by the United Arab Emirates, during which he has met with heads of State and Government in Uganda, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa and Rwanda.

“I don't think there is anything in the Horn of Africa that cannot be managed through diplomatic channels, but the problem is that no one is doing it,” says Cameron Hudson, an Africa expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “There is a lot of room for diplomacy, but there is no diplomacy in the region,” he slips.

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