U.S. launches Red Sea force
The United States on Tuesday launched a multinational operation to safeguard commerce in the Red Sea. Meanwhile, as attacks by Iran-backed Yemeni militants forced major shipping companies to reroute, fuelling concern over sustained disruptions to global trade.
However, the Houthi militant group, which controls vast amounts of territory in Yemen after years of war. Has since last month fired drones and missiles at international vessels sailing through the Red Sea – attacks it says respond to Israel’s assault on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Notwithstanding, this week, the attacks began to take their toll on global trade. So that, disrupting a key trade route that links Europe and North America with Asia via the Suez Canal.
U.S. launches Sea force
So, oil major BP paused all Red Sea transits, and a slew of top shipping firms including Maersk started diverting shipments normally made through Suez around the Cape of Good Hope on Africa’s southern tip. The new route all the way around Africa adds days to journey times and incurs higher costs. The list of companies avoiding the Red Sea continued to grow on Tuesday.
Who are Yemen’s Houthis and why are they attacking Red Sea ships?
Meantime, in the late 1990s, the Houthi family in far north Yemen set up a religious revival movement for the Zaydi sect of Shi’ite Islam, which had once ruled Yemen but whose northern heartland had became impoverished and marginalised.
Afterwards, as friction with the government grew, they fought a series of guerrilla wars with the national army and a
Their power grew during the Yemen war which began in late 2014, when they seized Sanaa. Worried by the growing influence of Shi’ite Iran along its border, Saudi Arabia intervened at the head of a Western-backed coalition in 2015 in support of the Yemeni government.
