Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebels said on Saturday that they were “teaching the United States a lesson” by having managed to block the Red Sea shipping route for ships heading to Israel. “Our naval forces continue to close the sea route to the ports of occupied Palestine with moral competence and clear military and intelligence professionalism,” said the Houthi government’s deputy foreign minister, Husan al Ezzi, on his official account on the platform X. “Sanaa has achieved this, 24 hours a day, calling ships and talking to their crews, and does not resort to the use of force except on rare occasions. I think we are teaching the United States an important lesson in civilized behavior,” he declared.
On Friday, John Kirby, a White House spokesman, announced that the United States had bombed Iranian-backed Shiite rebel positions for the second time in 24 hours. With this latest bombing, Washington was trying to destroy missiles that the Houthis would use to attack ships in the Red Sea, according to the spokesman. This is the sixth attack by US forces against the Houthis since the insurgent group began, months ago, attacking ships in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait that they allege are linked to Israel or are heading towards that country. . These Houthi attacks could have a major impact on the world economy because almost 15% of global maritime trade flows through the Red Sea.
The United States and Britain launched their first strike against Houthi-related targets in Yemen on January 12, in the first major act of retaliation against the insurgents for attacks in the Red Sea. Furthermore, at a diplomatic level, the United States this week announced the designation of the Houthis as “terrorists”, something the group considered an “honor”. On the other hand, the Houthis carried out around 30 attacks against ships that, according to them, are linked to Israel. On Friday, the British Navy, which reports on the situation on the sea route, did not report any incidents in the region.
EU maritime mission in the Red Sea would add fuel to the fire, say rebels
Yemen's Houthi rebels this Saturday called on the European Union (EU) not to add “more fuel to the fire” with the naval mission that it will likely approve to be implemented in the Red Sea and that, instead, the countries of the European bloc should act to “stop crimes” in the Gaza Strip. “Instead of European Union countries acting to add fuel to the fire, they should act seriously to end the crimes of genocide in Gaza, and then we will stop all our military operations immediately and automatically,” said Mohamed al Bukhaiti, a cabinet member Houthi politician, on his X platform account.
This Houthi representative indicated that European societies must “realize that moral and human values are fixed and do not change according to a person’s nationality and religion, and treating them with extreme selectivity that amounts to schizophrenia will expand the scope of the wars in the world, which will spread across Europe”.
Al Bukhaiti also justified attacks on ships in the Red Sea and Bab al Mandeb Strait. “We only attack ships linked to Israel, not with the aim of capturing or sinking them, but with the aim of changing their route to increase the economic cost to Israel as a form of pressure to stop its crimes in Gaza and allow entry of food, medicine and fuel for its beleaguered residents. This is a legitimate act, especially since we are in a state of war”, he argued, adding that, if the crews of these ships “had responded to the instructions of our naval forces, they would not have been detained or bombed”.
EU countries are inclined to ensure that the naval mission they will likely deploy in the Red Sea has a defensive character to protect merchant ships from attacks that the Houthis may launch, but they are not considering attacking Yemen, as are the United States and the United Kingdom.
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