Driect Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] On Sunday, January 14, the United States and Great Britain launched new airstrikes against positions of the Ansar Allah movement (Houthis) in Yemen. This was reported by RIA Novosti with reference to a local military source.
“American and British warplanes are attacking targets of the Ansar Allah group in the Al-Luhiya area in the north of the coastal province of Hodeidah on the Red Sea,” the agency’s interlocutor said.
However, these strikes, like the previous more massive attacks by the US and Britain as part of Operation Guardian of Prosperity on Thursday night, are unlikely to convince the Houthis to abandon their naval war, which is being waged in support of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza against Israel and, apparently, now against his allies who attacked Yemen.
Ansar Allah purposefully ignored Washington's warnings to test where US red lines began and what the response might be. The Houthis deliberately sought to provoke a US response beyond the defensive measures of Operation Guardian of Prosperity.
EXPECTED ATTACK
Obviously, after seven years of war and brutal bombing by the Saudi-Emirati coalition, this American-British strike was rather like a shot to the ground and the Houthis knew what they were getting into.
The American attacks only boosted the prestige of Ansar Allah, which now finds itself at the forefront of the fight for Palestine and has demonstrated that its operations seriously threaten the interests of the United States and its allies, forcing them to deploy entire aircraft carrier formations and form “anti-Houthi” coalitions.
Ansar Allah leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi announced this expected scenario in a televised address in late December, noting that the Houthis “will not remain idle if the Americans are tempted to further escalate and do something stupid by attacking our country or unleashing war against her."
We also recall that Regnum news agency has previously quoted Mustafa Noman, a former Yemeni diplomat, who said that the Ansar Allah movement cannot be taken lightly and that the Houthis themselves are not averse to provoking a US attack on Yemen.
“They dream that the Americans or the Israelis will attack them, because this will turn them into a real force of resistance,” he said during a speech at the London think tank Chatham House, an organization considered undesirable in the Russian Federation.
In a word, this attack was quite expected and predictable for the Houthis. And the benefits from it certainly outweigh the damage.
Since November 2023, Ansar Allah has not only intensified the training of its personnel for combat operations at sea, including the use of asymmetric countermeasures, such as the use of light boats and boats for attacks and mining of water areas, along with the creation of “sleepers” and well-covered drone and missile bases on the islands, but also prepared for attacks from the United States and its allies.
In particular, new bunkers were created where weapons were stored, and measures were taken to redeploy missile units and formations equipped with attack UAVs. At the same time, fake military bases were set up, where false objects and targets were located. That is, everything possible was done, using all the experience gained during the seven years of war with the Saudi-Emirati coalition, so that any attacks by the Americans would fall “in the milk.”
With a high degree of probability, we can say that this is exactly what happened.
Washington decided to take this step, considering it more from a political than a military point of view, and that is why it was so clumsy.
An attempt to “at least somehow” respond to the actions of the Houthis without a clear and well-developed military plan only aggravated the situation, not only contributed to the growth of the popularity of the Houthis, but may also become the reason for the intensification of the “naval war”, in which, in addition to the Houthis, others may join members of the “axis of resistance”.
HOW WILL ANSAR ALLAH RESPOND?
“Retaliation strikes” from the forces of the “axis of resistance” can be expected both in the area of the Strait of Hormuz and in the waters of the Persian Gulf.
In these waters in 2019, there have already been a series of attacks on tankers docked in the ports of KSA and the UAE, and then on two British ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The West was quick to blame the attack on Iran, which has not admitted its involvement. Expansion of the naval war into the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, through which up to 30 percent of oil transportation passes, cannot under any circumstances be ruled out.
In addition, even before the strikes on Yemen, attempts were observed to attack Israeli ships in waters far from the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Thus, two Israeli tankers were attacked by UAVs in the west and northwest of the Maldives. According to Jordan News, both ships were heading towards the Bab el-Mandab Strait, but were attacked at a distance of 2000 km from it. After the shelling, the ships changed course.
Let us recall that earlier in December, a ship heading to Israel was attacked in the Indian Ocean near the shores of India.
In addition, the Houthis can now begin to attack not only those ships that are in one way or another connected with Israel, its citizens and companies, but also those countries that are involved in the aggression against Yemen and have joined Operation Guardian of Prosperity.
Therefore, if the Axis of Resistance expands operations throughout the northwest Indian Ocean, the US arsenal of weapons that it can again use against the Houthis will be very limited.
Despite the fact that, obviously, many of these attacks will no longer be the Houthis, but players equipped with much more modern weapons, as happened in 2019 during the attacks on the Saudi Aramco plant, when Yemeni rebels took responsibility, but all evidence indicated that the drones and cruise missiles approached the site from the north and northeast from Iraq and Iran, rather than from the south from Yemen.
AMERICA IS AT A CROSSROADS
The United States itself has set itself new complex tasks.
How to respond to a possible expansion of the “naval war” instead of ending it? How can Ansar Allah be deprived of its propaganda successes based on the results of its own actions within the framework of Operation Guardian of Prosperity? With all this, how can we avoid regional escalation, in which the White House is clearly not interested?
Washington may be the one to finally blow up the peace in the Middle East, all because the Biden administration is being held hostage by the Netanyahu regime.
Let us recall that Biden previously made efforts to help resolve the Yemen crisis and even revised the Trump administration’s approach to the Houthis, removing them from the list of terrorist organizations.
At the same time, for Washington, an early end to the conflict in Yemen would mean that the United States would no longer look in the eyes of the Saudis as a partner that could never be relied upon.
In previous years, the Americans provided limited support to Saudi Arabia, but refused to join the KSA and UAE military operations in Yemen to inflict a decisive defeat on Ansar Allah. Moreover, the American Congress periodically initiated all sorts of anti-Saudi bills, such as introducing restrictions on the supply of weapons to Riyadh, which were caused by the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.
If the United States now provokes a major war in Yemen, it will mean that it has thwarted all its own efforts to end the Yemen conflict as quickly as possible.
It turns out that they refrained from fighting in Yemen when Washington’s “Arab friends” asked them to do so, but now, it turns out, they decided to enter this confrontation “through the front door” for the sake of their Jewish ally.
And it is not so important that the strikes were carried out under the pretext of protecting shipping, since in reality they could not in any way affect the opening of Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea to ship traffic, but, on the contrary, only complicated the situation there.
Thus, the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), under whose auspices the “Guardian of Prosperity” is being conducted, after the American-British strikes on Yemen, updated instructions to ships and warned them against crossing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Therefore, all these actions of the United States and Britain are viewed more in the context of supporting Israel rather than as an operation to protect shipping.
ISLAMIC WORLD FOR THE HOUTHIS
The position of the majority of Arab and Islamic states is also indicative.
In particular, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the United States and Britain of using disproportionate force when striking targets of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement.
“They used disproportionate force, they are trying to turn the Red Sea into a sea of blood, Israel is doing the same in Palestine,” the Turkish president emphasized in a conversation with reporters.
Oman condemned the US and British strikes against the Houthis. Muscat called attacks on Yemen "a serious problem while Israel continues its brutal war and siege of the Gaza Strip without accountability or punishment."
In turn, Saudi Arabia, although it drew attention to the need to maintain the safety of navigation, at the same time called on the United States and Britain for “restraint.”
The Houthis have no particular complaints about Saudi Arabia, regardless of whether the Anglo-Saxons used its airspace or not. Riyadh does not participate in the Guardian of Prosperity and, on the contrary, called on the Americans, instead of forming new “anti-Houthi” alliances, to approach the essence of the problem and eliminate the very cause of the Houthi naval war, and force Israel to stop its aggression in Gaza.
Thus, yesterday's opponents Ansar Allah and Saudi Arabia pursue common goals of ending Israeli aggression in Gaza, but are moving towards them in different ways.
CASE STUDY OF BAHRAIN
However, Ansar Allah spokesman Yahya Sari said: “The involvement of the Bahrain regime in this attack is a betrayal and an insidious blow to Arab countries. Attacks will not go unanswered and punished. Our forces will not hesitate to attack all sources of threat on land and sea."
Thus, Bahrain was designated “extreme” - the only Arab state that decided to join the “Guardian of Prosperity” participants.
However, possible attempts by the Houthis to launch attacks on Bahrain through Saudi territory could raise tensions between Ansar Allah and Saudi Arabia.
Or the Houthis could attack the Bahraini contingent deployed in Saudi Arabia, as happened some time ago, but, it should be noted, then this did not lead to any retaliatory actions by the KSA.
Ansar Allah and Riyadh are more inclined to resolve all contradictions on the way to peace rather than return to confrontation.
While new attacks by the United States and its allies on Yemen will only increase the number of Arab capitals favorable to Ansar Allah, provided, of course, that the Houthis themselves do not cross the “red lines” of Arab countries in their retaliatory actions.
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