Houthi Red Sea Attacks and US-UK Strikes on Yemen
The Houthi movement began attacking shipping in the Red Sea in November 2023, declaring that it was acting against vessels linked to Israel in response to the war in Gaza, and continued through 2024. Ansar Allah, the movement's formal name, is a Zaydi Shia force from northern Yemen that took the capital Sanaa in 2014 and has fought a Saudi-led coalition since 2015 in a war that produced one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies. Its weapons — anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones — are the most capable held by any non-state actor, and are supplied and largely designed by Iran. More than a hundred vessels were attacked. Two ships were sunk, one seized with its crew held for over a year, and several seafarers were killed. The targeting was loose: many of the ships had no Israeli connection at all. The commercial effect was immediate. Traffic through the Suez Canal, which carries something over ten per cent of world trade, fell by roughly two-thirds as carriers rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope, adding ten to fourteen days and substantial cost to voyages between Asia and Europe. Egypt lost most of its canal revenue. A multinational naval operation began in December 2023, and American and British strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen from January 2024. Neither stopped the attacks, which paused during the Gaza ceasefire of early 2025 and resumed afterwards. The movement's domestic standing rose considerably as a result. Shipping has been slow to return even during quiet periods, because insurers price the risk rather than the calendar. The episode demonstrated that a relatively poor non-state actor can impose global costs with a modest arsenal, which is the lesson other groups have drawn.
- Year: 2024 CE
- Category: Military
