E.U. Prepares to Launch a Red Sea Naval Mission to Counter Attacks on Ships
The European Union plans to launch a naval mission in the Red Sea within three weeks to help defend cargo ships against attacks by Yemen's Houthis, the bloc's top diplomat said Wednesday. Josep Borrell, EU foreign policy chief, said he wanted the mission to be up and running by Feb. 17. Officials say that seven E.U. countries are ready to provide ships or planes. The Houthis have launched a series of drone and missile attacks on commercial ships since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October, saying that their attacks will not end until the Israeli war on Palestinians in Gaza stops.
The Houthis' attempts to show solidarity with Gaza are not helping but hurting Palestinians in the embattled enclave, Tim Lenderking, the U.S. special envoy for Yemen, said.. The Yemeni group says that its actions express solidarity with Gaza — a claim Lenderking strongly disagrees with, citing the resultant "increasing freight and insurance costs" and higher prices in general. "It's just unfortunate that the Houthis have chosen to convey their solidarity with the Palestinians…by attacking regional shipping," Lenderking said. He added: "This action by the Houthis is doing nothing to help the Palestinians, nothing to alleviate the suffering of Gazans at all. In fact, on the contrary, it's complicating the movement of vital supplies into Gaza."
Yemen's Houthi group said Tuesday that it received a message from the U.S. conveyed via Amman threatening to open fronts against it in response to its anti-Israel actions. ''The American threatening message is in response to the Yemeni people's rejection of the killing of people in Gaza,'' Muhammad Ali Al-Houthi, a member of the group's Supreme Political Council, said in a statement on X. He added, "We say to the U.S. that any folly in carrying out the American threat will fail and will not stop the Yemeni people from their mission to support Gaza."
On Wednesday, Yemen's Houthi group said it would keep up attacks on U.S. and British warships in the Red Sea in self-defense, deepening fears of long-term disruptions to world trade. In a statement, the group's military spokesperson said all American and British warships participating in "aggression" against its country were targets. The U.S. and Britain have launched strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen and re-designated the movement on a list of terrorist groups as turmoil from the Israel-Palestine conflict spreads through the region. The group insists that they will persist with their military operations until the war ends in Gaza and food and medicine are allowed to enter to mitigate the humanitarian crisis.
