Red Sea marine traffic up 60 percent after Houthis narrowed targets, EU commander says
MADRID: Red Sea marine traffic has increased by 60 percent to 36-37 ships a day since August 2024, but is still short of volumes seen before Yemen's Houthis began attacking ships in the region, according to the commander of the EU's Aspides naval mission.
The number of merchant ships using the narrow Bab Al-Mandab strait increased after missile and drone attacks by the Houthis slowed and the US and the rebel group signed a ceasefire deal, Rear Admiral Vasileios Gryparis said in an interview in Madrid.
But shipping traffic, which reached a low of 20-23 ships daily in August last year, is still short of an average of 72-75 ships a day seen before the Houthis began attacks in the Red Sea in November in 2023 in support of Palestinians over Israel's war in Gaza, said Gryparis.
The mission, which was established to safeguard navigation in the strategic trade route linking the Mediterranean with the Gulf of Asia through the Suez Canal, was extended in February when it was also tasked with tracking illegal arms shipments and monitoring vessels carrying sanctioned Russian oil.
The last attack on a merchant ship took place in November 2024 and the Houthis have also narrowed their objectives, saying their targets are Israeli ships and ships that have a connection with Israel or have docked at an Israeli port, Gryparis said.
'If you have a vessel that does not correspond to this criteria... there is a huge possibility — more than 99 percent — that you're not going to be targeted by the Houthis,' Gryparis said.
Still, Gryparis said he could not guarantee that merchant ships won't be attacked.
Some companies have been deterred from using the route because of the mission's lack of ships, which can cause delays of as much as a week for those seeking to be escorted through the area, he said.
He said the mission has between two and three ships operating at one time and has requested the EU provide it with 10 ships to increase its capacity for protection.
The mission has provided close protection to 476 ships, shot down 18 drones, destroyed two remote-controlled boats used to attack ships and intercepted four ballistic missiles, he said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Arabiya
9 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Musk ‘very welcome' in Europe after Trump bust-up: Official
Elon Musk is 'very welcome' in Europe, a spokesperson for the European Commission quipped Friday, following the tech billionaire's spectacular public falling-out with US President Donald Trump. The Trump-Musk political marriage blew up on Thursday as the president declared himself 'very disappointed' in criticisms from his former aide and top donor -- before the pair hurled insults at each other on social media. At the commission's daily briefing, spokesperson Paula Pinho was asked whether Musk had reached out to the European Union with a view to relocating his businesses, or setting up new ones. 'He's very welcome,' she replied with a smile. The commission's spokesperson for tech matters, Thomas Regnier, followed up by stressing -- straight-faced -- that 'everyone is very welcome indeed to start and to scale in the EU.' 'That is precisely the objective of Choose Europe,' he said, referencing an EU initiative in favor of start-ups and expanding businesses. Musk has been a frequent critic of the 27-nation EU -- attacking its digital laws as censorship and berating its leaders, while cheering on the ascendant far-right in Germany and elsewhere. The tycoon's row with Trump saw the president threaten to strip him of government contracts estimated at $18 billion -- with Musk vowing in response to end a critical US spaceship program. Explaining the rift, Trump said Musk had gone 'crazy' about a plan to end electric vehicle subsidies in the new US spending bill -- as the bust-up sent shares in Musk's Tesla car company plunging.
Asharq Al-Awsat
12 hours ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
The Houthi Alternative for Lebanon
The Houthis resemble a boxer who, whenever he thinks he is about to strike his opponent, finds himself on the receiving end of devastating blows. However, despite his broken nose, gouged-out eye, and the blood pouring from his face, he refuses to leave the ring. Such behavior is met with glorification and veneration by the Resistance Axis. Per the Axis's worldview, the Houthis' determination to remain in the ring under such conditions brings them honor and dignity while standing up for and in solidarity with Gaza. As for the actual achievements that reward the Houthis for sacrificing their country and people, they amount to little more than launching a missile that is usually intercepted, instigating air raid sirens in Israel, sending people to shelters for an hour, or at most, threatening maritime shipping routes... all "for Palestine's sake" of course! Results, in any case, are unimportant; what matters is their effort, initiative, and intent. Every day, a different spokesperson for Hezbollah or its friends in the Axis rears his head to denounce the Lebanese state's failure to fulfill its duties and its capitulation to occupation. This slander is usually paired with smears against any bet on confronting Israel in the political or diplomatic arenas. With the party itself reeling from a painful military setback, the Lebanese army unequipped for such conflicts, and the overwhelming majority of the Lebanese people opposed to a war they believe is futile, the Houthi alternative is precisely what these slanderers are proposing. That is, the only appropriate course of action is to show little regard for the lives of our own people as we perform "solidarity" with Gaza and Palestine without actually doing anything to alleviate the suffering of Gazans or any Palestinians. On top of that, it would entail Lebanon would be reinvented into a pariah in its region and the world, just like the enclave in Yemen that Houthis govern in strange ways. Houthiism means, among other things, salvaging a pretense of heroic glory from the failure and fragmentation engendered by national division, civil war, and starvation. Thus, it is the attempt to derive strength - or something that resembles it - from weakness that cannot be hidden or denied. This belligerent disposition with a suicidal dimension was born of the wretched phenomenon of regimes that can only survive through war. If the war eventually wipes them out, they die martyrs in a death that is choreographed as heroic. There might be another implicit dimension: defending a world of the past that cannot be revived - in this case, the Mutawakkilite Kingdom that many Houthis died defending when it was overthrown by a military coup in 1962. Also in defense of a dead world and past, the Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima ended his life in 1970, with a heroic ritual suicide driven by his loyalty to the old Japan that had been "polluted" by modernization and Westernization. Leading four others in a suicide mission, he launched a failed coup he had deludedly believed could restore his country's divine past. When he failed in this attempt that had always been bound to fail, he launched into a tirade and disemboweled himself. There was also collective suicide at the "People's Temple" in Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978. There was a desire to abide by a religious cult's doctrines, and that desire was pushed to its extreme conclusion. More than 900 people perished, many of them children who were poisoned in order "to please God." These mythological visions of the world diminish the importance of clinging to life and pursuing a better model. The monster or evil is lying in wait, undeterred by politics, diplomacy, or anything else we can do. Thus, the only thing left to do is to scream "Death is sweet," exactly as the Houthis have done and continue to do. As they count down to a death presented as heroic, the Houthis are turning the territory they control into a sacrifice at the altar of the Iranian regime, the supreme totem whose interests one should die defending. As such, advocating the Houthi alternative for Lebanon amounts to calling on its people to die for the Iranian state's interests and several other crazy considerations. Hezbollah, when it was powerful, founded this school of thought that the Houthis subscribed to, so much so that they are now leading the race of the Resistance Axis' Arab factions toward gratuitous death. The fact remains that advocating for the Houthi alternative - with all the violence, poverty, and sacrifice that comes with it - also entails spreading an alarmist consciousness that convinces us that we must confront an imminent and unavoidable existential threat. That is how causality and the notion that every occurrence happens for some reason, are replaced with belief in an essentialized enemy that will inevitably attack and invade us, be it after a "support war" or without one. The fact is that this form of mythological thinking has deep roots. The latest war has only pushed it to a more acute, dramatic, and dangerous place. The Lebanese have been offered several models to follow over the decades. The Baathists suggested models they had set up in Syria and Iraq. The models proposed by the communists ranged from South Yemen to Bulgaria to North Korea. Of course, the Khomeinist model in Iran remains the ideal one championed by the Khomeninists. The difference between the Houthi alternative and those of the past might be that this time, death is incomparably more certain and faster.
Al Arabiya
12 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Lufthansa to restart Israel flights on June 23
Germany's Lufthansa airline group said Friday it would restart flights to and from Tel Aviv on June 23, having suspended them early last month amid the ongoing regional conflict. The group said in a statement that the decision would affect Lufthansa, Austrian, SWISS, Brussels Airlines Eurowings, ITA and Lufthansa Cargo but that 'for operational reasons', the individual airlines would only resume services 'gradually.' 'The decision is based on an extensive security analysis and in coordination with the relevant authorities,' it added. The group suspended its flights to Israel's main airport following a May 4 rocket attack launched by Yemen's Houthis, and extended the suspension several times since. The missile landed near a car park at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport and injured six people, the first time a missile had penetrated the airport perimeter. The Houthis have repeatedly launched missiles and drones at Israel since the war in Gaza began in October 2023 with Palestinian militant group Hamas's attack on Israel. The Iran-backed Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians, paused their attacks during a two-month Gaza ceasefire that ended in March, but began again after Israel resumed its military campaign in the territory. The Israeli army has reported several such launches in recent days, with most of the projectiles being intercepted.
