SETTLING SCORES AT BAB AL MANDEB

And how are things going for Israel's partners in the Red Sea?

By Sidney Hey

History has already shown how all empires in history, despite the fact that they manage to trample their adversaries underfoot, have at a certain point encountered a stone in their shoe that in some cases ends up being the tombstone of their existence as such. The US, in its crusade to help Israel and protect a strategic sea route, has clashed with the Yemenis and more particularly with the Shiite Muslims of Ansar Allah, who since October 2023 have pledged their firm support for the Palestinian cause. Just as Hamas and Tel Aviv have agreed to a ceasefire, the IDF continues its attacks on the Palestinian population.

Already last year, as soon as the first US ships arrived in the Red Sea, Yemeni forces not only did not stop their operations against Israeli or other vessels bound for ports in ‘occupied Palestine’, as the Yemeni leadership's communiqués always make clear. At best, both the Israelis and their ‘protectors’ were humiliated to find that those ‘raggedy little men in sandals’ (as an MI6 liaison in Tel Aviv called them) had kicked their asses.

The reaction of the empire was not long in coming, and to the delight of Netanyahu and his Talmudic extremist leadership, US and British aircraft repeatedly bombed Houthi bases and especially the ports of Sana'a and Hudeidah, the latter of which was recently attacked by Israeli aircraft. As always, most of the casualties were civilians, but this did not intimidate the Islamic resistance.

The only success they achieve with these bombings is to kill civilians. The Pentagon at one point tried to set up ground operations to raid the Houthis but the attempts were a disaster. Much less so do the Israeli commandos or any of their special units who have surely tried with no positive results.

Another major failure on record for the Anglo-Americans and their Israeli partners has been intelligence gathering. For Hollywood, the Huties are bad business because they leave them no room to make films of false heroism or any of the other farces they put on to try to rewrite with much fantasy what politically cannot be rewritten. It is not the first time that among other things, the Huties have shot down their expensive ‘MQ-9 Reaper’ spy drones and other models that they tried unsuccessfully to raid to attack territory inside. 

The Yemenis have proved to have more surprises up their sleeves than the Americans could have imagined.

When the US and Britain got involved in the Red Sea, it was not only Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin who was confident. Tel Aviv thought they could easily - in a few weeks at most - get rid of the Yemenis, but they did not. Kamikaze missiles and drones kept reaching Eilat and even the centre of Tel Aviv. Soon reports from the naval command in charge of the ‘USS Lincoln’ were coming in of a situation that was very difficult to handle. The situation they were involved in was so severe and dangerous that Atlanticist allies such as France and Germany literally apologised and withdrew their naval units from the area.

These defections were not unfounded. Proving the expertise and effectiveness of launching ballistic missiles on their ships even put them at a certain risk that their respective governments were unwilling to take. The ‘ragamuffins’, as some Western intelligence personnel call them, not only have modified land-to-sea ballistic missiles, but they are proving that they know how to use them very well.

But the surprise that worried and continues to worry Israeli intelligence officials was the realisation that Ansar Allah could hit them in the middle of Tel Aviv and if they wanted to in a specific building, as happened with the Mossad offices or Netanyahu's own residence. By having hypersonic missiles in their arsenals that are impossible to intercept and which they have apparently learned to use.

Since October 2023 Yemen has been under close scrutiny by CENTCOM, using all technological and human resources (including Saudi intelligence) to try to find weaknesses in the Yemeni forces and from where, together with their British and Israeli colleagues, they coordinate operations against Yemen.

In the early hours of 15 January, Huties fighters carried out another naval operation against the command ship of the so-called ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’, the aircraft carrier ‘USS Harry Truman’, while it was preparing to launch air strikes on Yemen, forcing it and its escort ships to withdraw to the north of the Red Sea. Neither the Defence Department nor any of the Pentagon's generals have commented on the incident. Sources in the area reported large explosions at sea and thick plumes of black smoke that spread hours after the attack.

According to the spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the operation is being carried out in support of the oppressed Palestinian people and their mujahideen, in response to the massacres against our people in Gaza and in retaliation to the Israeli aggression against Yemen. In fact, this is not the first time this vessel has been attacked. Previously in 2023 and 2024, ballistic missiles and drones caused serious problems for the Americans, forcing them to withdraw a few miles from the Yemeni coast.