How many people had heard of the Houthis a year ago? They made headlines in 2022 when they blew up an Aramco oil storage depot in Jeddah and before that when Operation Raahat was launched under Gen. VK Singh in 2015 to repatriate 4,000 Indians stranded in civil war-torn South Yemen. But the Houthis were still only peripherally on the edge of our consciousnesses.

Now, though, the Iran-backed Houthis have demonstrated how a small group of fighters can throw world trade completely off balance — and they’re getting better at it all the time. The latest attack last week was a triple-pronged effort using an unmanned explosive-stacked drone boat and two small manned vessels. The unmanned boat rammed into the Bentley 1, an Israel-owned vessel carrying vegetable oil from Russia to China. Luckily, the charges failed to detonate and after a brief small-arms fire exchange, the manned boats retreated.

“One attack last week was pretty much outside the Gulf of Aden. Significantly, it was almost in the open seas,” says a senior executive of a major shipping line. The Houthis also claim to have launched missile attacks on Israel’s Eilat port. This year there have been 101 attacks in and around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and around South Yemen.

What’s the impact of all this? Most merchant ships are now sailing all the way round Africa, via the Cape of Good Hope, a 40 per cent longer journey than sailing via the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. That’s two weeks of extra travel time and means having more ships to carry the same cargo amount. “You have to add that much capacity and that’s not just adding two ships but many more containers. Those aren’t easily available,” says the shipping company executive, adding: “We don’t have ships and containers lying idle we can deploy. So we must charter vessels and that’s also expensive.”

The result obviously is increased freight costs on any voyage between Europe and Asia. Russian oil tankers are still coming to India via Suez and the Red Sea but one, the Andromeda Star, was hit by unmanned missiles in April. The tanker was making its way from Primorsk, the Baltic port, to Vadinar in Gujarat. The Houthis are said to have excellent intelligence about the provenance and ownership of every ship and usually avoid ones carrying Russian cargoes as the Russians are viewed as Iranian allies. “They have incredible intelligence and weaponry,” says the shipping executive.

Other neighbouring countries are worse hit. The marine journey from the UAE to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia is normally at most a two-day voyage. But Jeddah is on the Red Sea and any voyage by this route would attract Houthi attacks. So ships have to make a journey halfway round the world, converting a brief voyage into a two-week journey.

Alternatively, in a few cases, Bangladeshi garment consignments are travelling by ship to the UAE and then being flown onwards to Europe.

Naval escorts

The shipping industry has tried every trick in the book to sail through the Red Sea. One effort was to travel in convoys with naval escorts — usually well-armed US navy warships. But even that wasn’t a safety guarantee and many major lines have accepted they must avoid Suez.

South Yemen is one country that has seen successive upheavals since independence from Britain. Before 1937, the Aden Protectorate was part of the Bombay Presidency and the city-port was a bustling trading hub and duty-free port. The British Indian rupee was the official currency until 1951. Aden is now under the control of the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government. The Houthi rebels are headquartered in Sa’naa and are supported by Iran.

South Yemen isn’t a small country by any stretch of imagination. It’s got a 35-million population, only slightly smaller than Saudi Arabia’s. But while the Saudis have fabulous oil wealth, South Yemen has little to offer. Also, its population is 35 per cent Zaydi Shia. The Houthis are Shias and they’re encouraged by Iran to wage war against the Sunni-led government. There are thought to be 20,000 Houthi fighters. The Americans attempted to bomb missile-and-drone bases but found it a wasted effort. The Houthis say their attacks are in retaliation for Israel’s bombardment of the Palestinians in Gaza. But now they’ve tasted power and realised how they —and their Iranian mentors — can impose a trade blockade on the world. Even if they were to cease now, what’s to stop them flexing their muscles and resuming their attacks whenever they want?

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