Filenews 30 December 2023 - by Guarav Sharma
It all started in November when Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels began attacking merchant ships passing through the Bab al-Mandab strait — a 20-mile-wide sea channel on the edge of the Red Sea between Djibouti and Yemen.
The targets of the Houthi drone and rocket attacks were ships supposedly heading for Israel.
After the escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis sided with the latter. But waves of attacks – in the strait linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden – have recently become more intrusive.
According to data released by U.S. Naval Central Command, at least 15 merchant ships have been attacked by Houthi rebels (so far) in November and December, most with close ties — at best — to Israel.
With companies stopping their ships from passing through the region, it was clear that international action to combat the attacks would be necessary.
The Red Sea is one of the most important routes in the world for energy and consumer cargoes. It is a key oil supply artery between Europe, the Middle East and Asia via the Suez Canal that accounts for over 10% of the world's seaborne crude.
The sea route is already considered dangerous from a navigational point of view, all the more so when shipping ships have to deal with a deteriorating security situation. Any ship or oil tanker passing through the Suez Canal to or from the Indian Ocean must pass through at this risk.
Avoiding the route means cargo between Asia and Europe must pass around the Cape of Good Hope around Africa's southern coast instead of the Suez Canal.
This change increases the route by almost 40%, adding an average of an additional 3,000 nautical miles while costs skyrocket.
In response to this crisis that the global economy cannot withstand, on December 19, 2023, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the creation of a multinational enterprise.
"This is an international challenge that requires collective action. I am therefore announcing the establishment of Operation Prosperity Guardian, an important new multinational security initiative."
As part of this, U.S. Navy warships will join fleets of ships and personnel from the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and Seychelles.
The big question is whether it will work and, more importantly, restore confidence in merchant shipping through the Red Sea? A similar initiative aimed at protecting shipping and combating Somali piracy has proved extremely successful to the point of almost eliminating the problem.
The coalition can also count on the help of other countries. For example, India deployed three of its warships to the region on Tuesday (December 26, 2023) in response to an attack on a tanker heading for its coast. France, Italy and Spain also have their own warships that carry out security and security exercises in the Red Sea.
We can safely assume that like the anti-piracy operations in Somalia, the number of maritime protection participants in the region will increase, whether they are under the umbrella of Operation Prosperity Guardian or not.
On Wednesday, global shipping company A.P. Moller Maersk announced that it has several dozen ships scheduled to travel through the Suez Canal and Red Sea in the coming weeks. There are now strong hopes that more companies will follow suit.
