The arm of "Tehran" in Yemen and the booby-trapped global navigation route

English - Wednesday 19 January 2022 الساعة 09:56 am
Hodeidah, NewsYemen, Muhammad Yahya:

In July 2017, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia threatened to cut off shipping in the Red Sea if the joint forces continued operations towards Hodeidah. The Houthis said at the time in a statement that they would turn the “Red Sea into a war zone.” This was a day after they targeted the port of Mocha by a drone boat.  Loaded with explosives, it crashed into the wharf of the port, near a group of anchored ships, but without causing any damage or casualties.

The terrorist Houthi militia controls more than 300 km of the Yemeni coast, the majority of which is in the Hodeidah Governorate, which the militia and Iran take as a launching point for their naval attacks that threaten international navigation in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab.

Being in the Red Sea was one of the goals that Iran sought to achieve as an important focal point in its strategy, as well as the desire to control the most important international corridors and threaten the global trade route. Tehran has worked to support its tools in Yemen, the Houthi militia, to achieve its project in the region from  Through its ships, it provides them, through its ships anchored in the south of the Red Sea, with data on targeting and piracy of ships, in addition to providing them with naval mines and self-driving car bombs that are remotely guided, and providing experts and training means to detonate modern boats that are confiscated from fishermen with explosives for use in targeting  Ships are a serious threat to international navigation, global trade and the security of the Red Sea.

Since the signing of the Stockholm Agreement and the halting of the massive military operation to liberate the city of Hodeidah in December 2018, the coalition to support legitimacy in Yemen has foiled more than 100 naval attacks by the Houthi militia against cargo ships, oil tankers, and ships with civilian missions.

The Houthi militia’s kidnapping and piracy of the Emirati ship “Rawabi” off the coast of Hodeidah early this month is a dangerous indication of the Tehran-backed militia’s insistence on threatening navigation in the Bab al-Mandab strait and the southern Red Sea, and causing unrest in the region, which calls for action to deter any threats against those  Maritime piracy, which sets a precedent and a serious violation of international law.

During the period from 2021-2019, as part of the Houthi militia's systematic operations in piracy of cargo ships, a number of commercial ships were attacked and detained by the pro-Iranian militia, including a Saudi commercial ship that was attacked by a drone south of the Red Sea, and another small Saudi ship that was seized and a tugboat carrying  The South Korean flag, and the militia pirated an Omani ferry known as "Al-Rahya" after it ran aground due to the winds to a small island off the coast of Hodeidah.  Where the militia arrested the crew of the ship, which consisted of 20 sailors of Egyptian and Indian nationalities, for more than a year, and the militia put the ferry at military disposal to supply its members.

The Houthis' attacks with booby-trapped boats on commercial ships and oil tankers passing through the Red Sea have also increased. In December 2021, the "Havena" Shipping Company announced that the oil tanker operating it, "BW Ryan", was attacked from an external source off the port of Jeddah, according to the British Maritime Trade Operations Authority.  A ship belonging to it was attacked off the coast of Yemen, and it did not clarify its nature, nor the party behind it.

In November 2021, a Greek company said that an explosion damaged a tanker it operates in a Saudi port with the Yemeni border in the Red Sea, and the Coalition to Support Legitimacy described it as a “frustrated terrorist attack by an unmanned boat loaded with explosives.”  Two bombed boats, south of the Red Sea, launched by the Houthi militia from Hodeidah Governorate.

And at the beginning of the last year 2021, the Arab coalition identified a site for a workshop for preparing and booby-trapping boats used by the Houthi militia near the city of Al-Lahya, north of the city of Hodeidah, supervised by Iranian experts.  As a maintenance and supply center for the booby-trapped boats that it uses to threaten the movement of merchant ships in the Red Sea.

In October last year, the Arab coalition announced that it had thwarted attacks targeting international shipping lines, by bombing a factory for assembling and booby-trapping boats at the coastal camp of Al-Jabbana in Al-Hodeidah Governorate.  Four booby-trapped boats equipped to carry out terrorist operations were destroyed, bringing the total number of boats that destroyed to 91 boats.

The Iranian-backed Houthi militia continues to threaten international navigation in and outside the Red Sea by planting Iranian-made mines in the territorial waters. Marine mines have become a major threat to thousands of fishermen, in addition to threatening international shipping, trade lines and global oil supplies.

Since 2015, the terrorist militia has deployed hundreds of naval mines in the territorial waters of the Red Sea, and along the western coast of Hodeidah Governorate, reaching Mocha and the islands scattered on the coastal strip and close to the international corridor, the strategic Bab al-Mandab corridor and the Gulf of Aden, and the number of mines that have been dismantled in recent months has reached  To 200 Iranian-made seashells in the southern Red Sea. The sea mines have killed hundreds of fishermen. According to analysts, these mines are the most important weapons of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and the aim of planting them is to threaten international navigation and at the same time blackmail the international community.