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US Navy helicopters exchanged fire with Houthi fighters from Yemen in the Red Sea on Sunday, US Central Command said. This has led to a significant escalation of tensions on one of the world's busiest sea routes, part of the regional impact of Israel's war in Gaza.
The incident occurred on Sunday morning when Houthi fighters in four small boats approached the Singapore-flagged Danish Maersk Hanghzou and exchanged fire with a security team on board, a Centcom statement said. After the militants fired on U.S. helicopters that were responding to a distress call from the ship, the helicopters returned fire, sinking three of the four Houthi boats and killing their crew members, it said.
Who are the Houthis and why are they attacking ships in the Red Sea?
The helicopters dispatched from the USS Eisenhower and USS Gravely suffered no damage, it said, and no US personnel were injured. A Houthi military spokesman said 10 members of the movement were dead or missing.
“It's one of the most important and vital commercial waterways in the world,” John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator at the National Security Council, said Sunday on ABC's “Good Morning America.”
“And we have a commitment to our allies and partners to keep trade flowing,” he said.
The Houthis, an Iran-backed militant group that controls northern Yemen, have been attacking merchant ships since October. According to the movement, this is a retaliatory measure for Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip. They have stated that their naval attacks – on Israeli-owned ships or ships bound for Israel – will continue until the siege on Gaza is lifted.
Their campaign coincided with attacks by other Iranian-backed militant groups in Lebanon and Iraq that targeted Israel or its closest military and political ally, the United States.
But the Houthis had refrained from directly attacking U.S. forces even as the Biden administration took the lead and announced the formation of a maritime coalition to confront the Yemeni militants. Sunday's firefight appeared to be the first direct combat between the U.S. and Houthi forces since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants crossed into Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages.
A statement from the Houthi military on Sunday evening announced “the martyrdom and loss of 10 members of our naval force as a result of American aggression.”
“The American enemy,” the statement said, “is bearing the consequences of the crime and its effects.”
Sunday's firefight reportedly occurred hours after another missile hit the Maersk Hanghzou in the Red Sea Centcom. In response to that attack, which took place on Saturday evening, the Gravely shot down two anti-ship missiles fired from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen, Centcom said, adding that no injuries were reported.
Maersk said in an emailed statement after the second attack that it was delaying all transits in the region for 48 hours. It added that the Maersk Hangzhou was traveling from Singapore to Port Suez in Egypt at the time of the attacks and that its crew had been reported safe.
Maersk's decision to postpone Sunday's shipping came three days after it announced the resumption of transits through the area, citing security protections from the U.S.-led naval coalition.
The US is looking for partners to protect ships after attacks in the Red Sea
Other companies are now closely watching how Maersk operates. John Kartsonas, managing partner at Breakwave Advisors, a research firm specializing in supply chain and shipping, said that if Maersk decides to extend its current pause beyond a few days, others in the industry would likely follow.
After the Houthi attacks, many of the giant ships that carry about 12 percent of all world trade through the Suez Canal have changed course and instead are set for the long journey around southern Africa.
Up to 12 of 14 container ships and a large proportion of oil and gas tankers are traveling on the main route between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea – shortening the journey between Asian and European waters and between Asia and parts of the Atlantic by thousands of miles – are instead moving south, Everstream Analytics, which analyzes supply chains, said in December.
Sunday's incident highlighted the risks for major shipping companies, whose operations have far-reaching effects on the global economy despite U.S. efforts to protect the waterway.
“This is definitely an escalation that will change things,” said Robert Khachatryan, CEO of Freight Right Global Logistics in Los Angeles.
“There are a lot of ships going through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal,” he said. “It's just not going to happen that the military is escorting every single one of them. And even if they are escorted, they can be shot at with missiles from inland.”
Analysts say shipping costs would already be skyrocketing worldwide in 2024, for reasons not just related to the Middle East. Prices from Asia to Mediterranean ports have already increased from about $1,500 per container in October to $2,500 per container now, according to Margaret Kidd, program director and adjunct professor of Supply Chain & Logistics at the University of Houston.
The risks, Kidd said, were compounding at a time when shipping was recovering from the challenges of the pandemic and the cost of transporting goods around the planet was soaring.
The Houthi attacks have boosted the militant movement's reputation in Yemen and the Middle East, amid widespread widespread Israel's offensive, which has killed nearly 22,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to its health ministry.
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The Houthi attacks have put the Biden administration in a bind, in part because Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. partner, is trying to reach a peace deal with the Houthis, formally ending the kingdom's military intervention in a long civil war in Yemen . The escalation of hostilities between the US and the Houthis could derail these efforts.
The Houthis “know that the Americans don't want escalation because of the Saudi-Yemeni negotiations,” said Mohammed Basha, a senior Middle East analyst at Navanti, a risk assessment group. “You’re in the sweet spot.”
The movement, whose antipathy toward Israel and the United States has been part of its ideology for decades, may decide to escalate its confrontation with the United States after Sunday's events, he added, including by targeting U.S. naval vessels such as a destroyer take.
The White House has also faced pressure from Israeli and U.S. lawmakers to more forcefully address the Houthi Red Sea threat.
Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday on ABC's “This Week” that the Biden administration has “reacted very timidly to Iran's escalation.”
“The government remains unresponsive to the Houthi escalation in the region,” he said. The White House will need to “examine operations in Yemen, where the capabilities are resonant, where Iran continues to reload them while attacking commercial shipping areas and endangering the U.S. military,” he added.
There were no signs on Sunday that Israeli military operations in Gaza – the stated reason for the Houthi attacks – were anywhere near their end. Early Sunday afternoon, Gaza's Health Ministry said 150 people had been killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll in Gaza since October 7 to 21,822.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that the war in Gaza “will continue for many more months” – echoing comments from the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff last week – until an “absolute victory” is achieved.
A member of his government, Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister, said in an interview on Sunday that Israel should encourage “immigration” of Palestinians in Gaza, adding further comments Palestinians fear that Israel intends to forcibly evict them from the enclave.
“The whole discussion about what will happen after the war will be different if there are 100 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza instead of 2 million,” he said in an interview with Israeli Army Radio.
Fahim reported from Istanbul, Sands from London and Pietsch and Halper from Washington. Ali Al-Mujahid in Sana'a, Yemen, and Pradnya Joshi in Washington contributed to this report.