Issue No. 25

Houthis and the Horn

Since 19 October 2023, Yemen's Houthi rebels have launched dozens of missiles and armed drones at ships transiting the Red Sea. Other vessels closer to the stretch of Yemeni coastline on the narrow Bab al-Mandab Strait have also been boarded by Houthi fighters. The reasons for the attacks have been well-publicised, and the Islamist movement has signalled it does not intend to halt them until Israel ceases its invasion of the Gaza Strip. Subsequently, multiple vessels with any minor connection to Israel, and many without, have been targeted.
 
The Houthis resistance has defied conventional wisdom that a substantial naval presence can prevent obstructions of sea routes. But the main impact of the attacks, rather than the material damage caused– only a couple of ships have actually been sunk-- are the media, psychological, and financial consequences. The Houthi capacity for striking ships also appears unabated, despite the hundreds of air strikes launched by the US and the UK in an attempt to secure the arterial trade route. Yesterday, 6 March, saw the first fatalities of the campaign when a Houthi missile reportedly struck the Barbados-flagged True Confidence cargo ship.
 
Shipping costs have risen as insurance firms have hiked their prices, while many shipping companies are now diverting their freight around the Cape of Good Hope. While this diversion can add another 10 days or so of travel, increasing fuel and labour costs, it saves on higher insurance and the tolls to pass through the Suez Canal. Egypt, subsequently, has been particularly badly impacted by the Red Sea crisis– with Sinai tolls down reportedly as much as 40%. Egypt's financial crunch has been somewhat mitigated by the recent deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sovereign wealth fund to develop a stretch of Egypt's northern coast in exchange for USD 24 billion, with a further USD 11 billion promised in investments. Still, ports along the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden are suffering from the drop in business.
 
Elsewhere in the Horn, some have posited that the recent uptick in piracy off Somalia's coast is linked to the Houthis attacks, with Somali pirates seemingly seeking to exploit the current instability. The truth of this is hard to discern, as it is difficult to square this logic with the sheer number of military naval vessels now operating in international waters near Somalia. The European Union has two naval missions alone, while countries like India are also flexing their maritime forces.
 
The causes of Somalia's piracy problem are also essentially economic in nature—borne out of poverty and a realisation that it is far more profitable to hijack a ship than labour on a fishing boat. Massive overfishing by foreign vessels in Somalia's territorial waters has left fish stocks badly depleted, and with few other economic avenues, many turned to piracy in the 2000s and early 2010s. In this regard, the sinking of the UK-owned cargo ship Rubymar on 2 March after multiple Houthi missiles struck it on 18 February may further negatively impact Somalia's coastal fishing communities. The Belize-flagged vessel leaked oil for several days before sinking and, particularly concerningly, was carrying over 40,000 tonnes of fertiliser. Further ecological degradation of marine ecosystems would badly impact the coastal-dependent economies of villages and towns on either side of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
 
Transnational smuggling links between the Houthis and terror groups like Al-Shabaab in Somalia have also been established. Weapons smuggled in dhows from Yemen often end up in the hands of Al-Shabaab and others, including the Islamic State in Somalia. As the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Ghada Waly noted on 1 March in Mogadishu, the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn face shared interlinked threats of piracy, illicit fishing, as well as trafficking and smuggling. Well-established and highly profitable smuggling networks transport everything from detonator cords for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to heroin along the littoral states in the Horn.
 
Other actors in the Horn also have a chequered history with the Houthis that pre-dates the current Red Sea crisis. The Yemeni Civil War was a key vehicle through which the currently warring generals in Sudan ascended in status in the late 2010s. Now-Commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, oversaw the army's contingent of fighters in Yemen on behalf of the Gulf powers fighting the Houthis. Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo 'Hemedti' was also responsible for the many thousands of RSF fighters that were deployed against the Houthis.
 
In the final years of Omar al-Bashir's regime in Sudan, the economy was crumbling amid starved oil revenue and costly patronage flows. Thousands of Sudanese fighters were subsequently dispatched to fight the Houthis in exchange for hard cash for the al-Bashir regime. The funds channelled into Sudan by the Gulf powers made Hemedti immensely wealthy, so much so that he once claimed he could deposit USD 1 billion into Sudan's Central Bank. RSF fighters also gained critical combat experience that they have put to devastating use since April 2023.
  
Unlike some of its neighbours, the internationally recognised Yemeni government is not a substantial investor or arms dealer in the Horn. Still, the country's war has been the site of several critical episodes in recent years for the wider region. Yemen was a critical hub where Gulf powers began more aggressively asserting themselves in lucrative entanglements in the Horn; a trend that has only increased to the present day. These relationships and the myriad consequences that have stemmed from them appear only set as deepen as Gulf powers and others look to secure their interests along the Red Sea.

By the Horn Edition team