Date: Wednesday, 31 July 2024
July 23, 2024: It’s been over sixty years since American warships have experienced combat. That last occasion was off Vietnam in the 1960s. That changed in June 2024 when two US Navy destroyers, the USS Mason and USS Thomas Hudner exchanged fire with Yemen rebels led by leaders of the Houthi clan. This went on for six days and the Houthi attacks were greatly diminished by the air strikes and the presence of the two destroyers.
The Mason and Thomas Hudner are two of the 73 Arleigh Burke Class destroyers in American service with more being built. The ultimate goal is to have 92 Burkes. There were several generations of Burkes but in general they were warships displacing 9,200 tons operated by a crew of 320. Top speed is 56 kilometers an hour while cruising speed is 37 kilometers an hour. At that speed a Burke can travel 8,100 kilometers on a load of fuel. Burkes have a complete array of modern electronics and sensors needed to detect and fight surface, air, and subsurface threats. Weapons include a 127mm, or five inch, gun in a turret, two Phalanx 20mm autocannon systems, each with an automated fire control system that, when active, automatically fires on any incoming missile threat. There are 90 VLS (Vertical Launch System) cells for various types of missiles including anti-aircraft, cruise, anti-submarine and BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense). There are several other defensive systems. There are six 324mm torpedo tubes for lightweight anti-submarine torpedoes. There is a helicopter on board with a flight deck and hangar at the rear of the ship. Two of these well-equipped destroyers handled all the Houthi rebels could throw at them while also providing protection for over two dozen merchant ships moving up the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal.
The USS Mason belonged to Carrier Strike Group 2, which is based around the nuclear powered aircraft carrier CVN-69 Eisenhower. The USS Thomas Hudner belons to Carrier Strike Group 12, which is based around the nuclear powered aircraft carrier CVN-78 Ford. It’s not unusual for destroyers from two different Carrier Strike groups to be detached for a separate mission, In this case it was dealing with anti-ship missile attacks by Iran backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The carrier Eisenhower sent its aircraft to attack Houthi militia positions in Yemen. The two destroyers and air support from the Eisenhower defeated or destroyed many of the Houth missile attacks
For several decades the major troublemaker in Yemen has been the al-Houthi family and its growing Shia rebel militia from northern Yemen. The Houthi rebels became active in northern Yemen during the 1990s and opposed the Yemen government that controlled most of the country. In 2014 the Houthi captured the Yemen capital of Sanaa so the government moved its administrative personnel to the port city of Aden in the south. The elected leader of Yemen spent most of his time in Saudi Arabia, where he was safe from assassination and the general mayhem that has characterized Yemen since the Houthis moved south.
In 2021 the U.S. labeled the Houthis international terrorists. The rebels, also known as Ansar Allah, are sponsored by Iran have regularly attacked Saudi Arabia and , since Hamas attacked Israel last October, ships from all nations in the Red Sea. The rebels are so dependent on, and controlled by, Iran that one of the Iranian ambassadors to the rebel government was an IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) general Hassan Irloo, who had sanctions imposed on him when he arrived in Yemen during 2020.
For a long time many Western politicians, especially in Europe, opposed the designation of the Houthi rebels as terrorists and favored trying to negotiate with Iran and the rebels to achieve a peace deal. The American government and most Arab states pointed out that the main reason Iran backs the Shia rebels is because it gives them a base from which to attack Saudi Arabia, a nation they are at war with. Iran is also at war with Israel and the United States. Iran has a record of not complying with agreed-to treaties and the Yemeni rebels do the same. No peace proposal to the Houthis has ever worked out.
About half of the 35 million Yemenis depend on food aid to avoid malnutrition or starvation. Most of the food aid comes in via the Red Sea port of Hodeida, which is controlled by the Houthi rebels. This means that the Houthis control the food aid coming in and dispense that aid to cooperative groups while withholding it from hostile tribes and other entities in northwestern Yemen.
Two major donor nations, the U.S. and Britain reduced food and other aid deliveries because the Houthi rebels refused to eliminate restrictions on auditing and supervising what happens to aid in rebel-controlled areas. American aid for rebel held areas stopped in early 2020s. The UN continues to document rebel practices that involve destroying, diverting or delaying distribution of aid in rebel held areas where the local civilians will not cooperate with the rebels. Since 2019 the rebels have been recruiting teenagers for their combat forces and many families and tribes will not cooperate. Other tribes continue to oppose the rebels for any number of reasons. No food or medicine for these either. A growing number of hostile tribes are cooperating with the rebels to avoid starvation. What it came down to was that aid was prolonging the war. In response a lot of the aid is being halted, at least for the rebel-controlled areas.
Since the rebels took control of Hodeida and the capital Sanaa, Saudi and UN aid groups were unable to repair infrastructure that the rebels were unable or unwilling to maintain. Same situation in the capital, Saana, which the rebels have also controlled and not maintained. This lack of infrastructure maintenance in large urban areas was the main reason for the eventual return of cholera.
This self-destructive attitude by the Shia rebels was also present among the separatist Sunni tribes in the south. Despite all the fighting since 2014, and similar activity in the 1990s, there are still factions in the north and south who believed unity was overrated and two Yemens was the way to go. After a few years of recent fighting, with most of the population surviving on foreign food aid, regional autonomy or national unity no longer seems relevant. Many of those hungry Yemenis have to pay Houthi rebels for this free food. The foreign aid NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) and the UN complain about this but the Houthi rebels are armed and dangerous and the UN is not. Not armed that is. That has led to foreign donors reducing their contributions. The aid-per Yemeni fell 50 percent between 2019 and 2020 and has not improved since. Part of that was due to the covid19 economic recession, but most of the decline was about the Houthi rebels using the aid as a source of income and using the threat of withholding all aid to Yemenis who did not cooperate.
There is resistance to admitting that Yemen is a failed state, one of those areas, like Somalia and Afghanistan, that were never united for long and are basically several smaller entities that are not really interested in unity with neighbors who are supposed to be their countrymen. And then there is the corruption problem, where Yemen ranks as one the most corrupt nations in the world.
Most Iran-backed Shia rebels still believe time is their side as long as the Iranian support continues. Iran understands this as well and is willing to finance the expensive smuggling effort at a reduced level because of the distress it causes the Saudis. The problem with this strategy is that Iran can afford to abandon the Shia rebels while the Saudis cannot afford to have an Iranian ally on their southern border. This fighting in 2020 has left about 4,000 people dead or wounded. Most of the casualties have been civilians victimized by the rebel tactic of trying to hide combat units and supplies in residential areas to discourage air strikes. That only works some of the time. The attacks on Saudi Arabia have diminished since 2021 but the threat is still there as long as Iranian weapons keep reaching the Houthis.
The Houthi rebels are going broke because it costs a lot of money to maintain a force of several thousand gunmen and also pay for the staff of the temporary government the rebels have established in the north. The Houthis control access to over a third of the Yemeni population and these are among the most in need of foreign food and medical aid. The Arab Coalition has been taking apart the legal income sources the rebels had because they captured the national capital in 2014 and held on to it. That meant they maintained control over vital, and profitable, taxation of key industries. One of the most valuable, the telecommunications business, has been generating about $60 million a month in taxes since the rebels seized the capital. The Arab coalition created a rival national telecommunications authority in 2019 and persuaded most of the foreign telecommunications firms to abandon the Shia rebels and pay the legitimate government operating from the temporary capital of Aden. As long as Iran is able or willing to make up enough of the lost Houthi income, the Houthis will continue. That is difficult for Iran because the Americans’ 2018 revival of economic sanctions turned out to be more of a burden than the religious dictatorship of Iran expected. That was made worse by covid19, which the Iranian clergy initially declared as something that only killed infidels (non-Moslems). This attitude enabled the virus to spread rapidly throughout Iran before the government acted. That led to more anti-government demonstrations and calls for less spending on foreign wars.
In Yemen there is also a war going on with Islamic terrorists. The remaining ones in Yemen belong to AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) or ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant). Both these terrorist groups are still around but largely keep their heads down in rural hideouts. Most of these are in central Yemen and areas to the east. Baida province used to be a major AQAP base area but not so much now as more AQAP factions disperse to other areas in central and eastern Yemen. Anywhere an Islamic terrorist can find a hospitable tribe, they can usually arrange refuge. AQAP has few active members left in Yemen and the only remaining local support is from some separatist Sunni tribes in the south and east. Since 2017 AQAP has been under heavy attack by the Americans and Arab coalition so the Islamic terrorists responded by shifting more of their attacks from Shia rebels to the government and Arab coalition forces. ISIL and AQAP were fighting each other a lot after mid-2018 but since early 2020 ISIL has not been very active. ISIL lost this war and some ISIL factions are known to be hiding out in Shia rebel territory. That requires offering some cooperation with the Shia rebels and that apparently includes useful intel on what is going on in the rest of Yemen, where ISIL still has fans. ISIL and AQAP are both trying to rebuild, especially after the losses, including defections, during their battles with each other. That’s another reason why Yemen is a slow-motion war made slower by hunger, disease and poverty.
The Houthis remain the best armed and most aggressive rebel force in Yemen. That and orders from their Iranian patron are why they have recently been firing their Iranian anti-ship missiles at commercial shipping and American destroyers in the Red Sea. These attacks started in November 2023 as the Houthis sought to avenge the October 2023 defeat of Hamas in Gaza, an area on the Mediterranean coast between Egypt and Israel. July 23, 2024: It’s been over sixty years since American warships have experienced combat. That last occasion was off Vietnam in the 1960s. That changed in June 2024 when two US Navy destroyers, the USS Mason and USS Thomas Hudner exchanged fire with Yemen rebels led by leaders of the Houthi clan. This went on for six days and the Houthi attacks were greatly diminished by the air strikes and the presence of the two destroyers.
The Mason and Thomas Hudner are two of the 73 Arleigh Burke Class destroyers in American service with more being built. The ultimate goal is to have 92 Burkes. There were several generations of Burkes but in general they were warships displacing 9,200 tons operated by a crew of 320. Top speed is 56 kilometers an hour while cruising speed is 37 kilometers an hour. At that speed a Burke can travel 8,100 kilometers on a load of fuel. Burkes have a complete array of modern electronics and sensors needed to detect and fight surface, air, and subsurface threats. Weapons include a 127mm, or five inch, gun in a turret, two Phalanx 20mm autocannon systems, each with an automated fire control system that, when active, automatically fires on any incoming missile threat. There are 90 VLS (Vertical Launch System) cells for various types of missiles including anti-aircraft, cruise, anti-submarine and BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense). There are several other defensive systems. There are six 324mm torpedo tubes for lightweight anti-submarine torpedoes. There is a helicopter on board with a flight deck and hangar at the rear of the ship. Two of these well-equipped destroyers handled all the Houthi rebels could throw at them while also providing protection for over two dozen merchant ships moving up the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal.
The USS Mason belonged to Carrier Strike Group 2, which is based around the nuclear powered aircraft carrier CVN-69 Eisenhower. The USS Thomas Hudner belons to Carrier Strike Group 12, which is based around the nuclear powered aircraft carrier CVN-78 Ford. It’s not unusual for destroyers from two different Carrier Strike groups to be detached for a separate mission, In this case it was dealing with anti-ship missile attacks by Iran backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The carrier Eisenhower sent its aircraft to attack Houthi militia positions in Yemen. The two destroyers and air support from the Eisenhower defeated or destroyed many of the Houth missile attacks
For several decades the major troublemaker in Yemen has been the al-Houthi family and its growing Shia rebel militia from northern Yemen. The Houthi rebels became active in northern Yemen during the 1990s and opposed the Yemen government that controlled most of the country. In 2014 the Houthi captured the Yemen capital of Sanaa so the government moved its administrative personnel to the port city of Aden in the south. The elected leader of Yemen spent most of his time in Saudi Arabia, where he was safe from assassination and the general mayhem that has characterized Yemen since the Houthis moved south.
In 2021 the U.S. labeled the Houthis international terrorists. The rebels, also known as Ansar Allah, are sponsored by Iran have regularly attacked Saudi Arabia and , since Hamas attacked Israel last October, ships from all nations in the Red Sea. The rebels are so dependent on, and controlled by, Iran that one of the Iranian ambassadors to the rebel government was an IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) general Hassan Irloo, who had sanctions imposed on him when he arrived in Yemen during 2020.
For a long time many Western politicians, especially in Europe, opposed the designation of the Houthi rebels as terrorists and favored trying to negotiate with Iran and the rebels to achieve a peace deal. The American government and most Arab states pointed out that the main reason Iran backs the Shia rebels is because it gives them a base from which to attack Saudi Arabia, a nation they are at war with. Iran is also at war with Israel and the United States. Iran has a record of not complying with agreed-to treaties and the Yemeni rebels do the same. No peace proposal to the Houthis has ever worked out.
About half of the 35 million Yemenis depend on food aid to avoid malnutrition or starvation. Most of the food aid comes in via the Red Sea port of Hodeida, which is controlled by the Houthi rebels. This means that the Houthis control the food aid coming in and dispense that aid to cooperative groups while withholding it from hostile tribes and other entities in northwestern Yemen.
Two major donor nations, the U.S. and Britain reduced food and other aid deliveries because the Houthi rebels refused to eliminate restrictions on auditing and supervising what happens to aid in rebel-controlled areas. American aid for rebel held areas stopped in early 2020s. The UN continues to document rebel practices that involve destroying, diverting or delaying distribution of aid in rebel held areas where the local civilians will not cooperate with the rebels. Since 2019 the rebels have been recruiting teenagers for their combat forces and many families and tribes will not cooperate. Other tribes continue to oppose the rebels for any number of reasons. No food or medicine for these either. A growing number of hostile tribes are cooperating with the rebels to avoid starvation. What it came down to was that aid was prolonging the war. In response a lot of the aid is being halted, at least for the rebel-controlled areas.
Since the rebels took control of Hodeida and the capital Sanaa, Saudi and UN aid groups were unable to repair infrastructure that the rebels were unable or unwilling to maintain. Same situation in the capital, Saana, which the rebels have also controlled and not maintained. This lack of infrastructure maintenance in large urban areas was the main reason for the eventual return of cholera.
This self-destructive attitude by the Shia rebels was also present among the separatist Sunni tribes in the south. Despite all the fighting since 2014, and similar activity in the 1990s, there are still factions in the north and south who believed unity was overrated and two Yemens was the way to go. After a few years of recent fighting, with most of the population surviving on foreign food aid, regional autonomy or national unity no longer seems relevant. Many of those hungry Yemenis have to pay Houthi rebels for this free food. The foreign aid NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) and the UN complain about this but the Houthi rebels are armed and dangerous and the UN is not. Not armed that is. That has led to foreign donors reducing their contributions. The aid-per Yemeni fell 50 percent between 2019 and 2020 and has not improved since. Part of that was due to the covid19 economic recession, but most of the decline was about the Houthi rebels using the aid as a source of income and using the threat of withholding all aid to Yemenis who did not cooperate.
There is resistance to admitting that Yemen is a failed state, one of those areas, like Somalia and Afghanistan, that were never united for long and are basically several smaller entities that are not really interested in unity with neighbors who are supposed to be their countrymen. And then there is the corruption problem, where Yemen ranks as one the most corrupt nations in the world.
Most Iran-backed Shia rebels still believe time is their side as long as the Iranian support continues. Iran understands this as well and is willing to finance the expensive smuggling effort at a reduced level because of the distress it causes the Saudis. The problem with this strategy is that Iran can afford to abandon the Shia rebels while the Saudis cannot afford to have an Iranian ally on their southern border. This fighting in 2020 has left about 4,000 people dead or wounded. Most of the casualties have been civilians victimized by the rebel tactic of trying to hide combat units and supplies in residential areas to discourage air strikes. That only works some of the time. The attacks on Saudi Arabia have diminished since 2021 but the threat is still there as long as Iranian weapons keep reaching the Houthis.
The Houthi rebels are going broke because it costs a lot of money to maintain a force of several thousand gunmen and also pay for the staff of the temporary government the rebels have established in the north. The Houthis control access to over a third of the Yemeni population and these are among the most in need of foreign food and medical aid. The Arab Coalition has been taking apart the legal income sources the rebels had because they captured the national capital in 2014 and held on to it. That meant they maintained control over vital, and profitable, taxation of key industries. One of the most valuable, the telecommunications business, has been generating about $60 million a month in taxes since the rebels seized the capital. The Arab coalition created a rival national telecommunications authority in 2019 and persuaded most of the foreign telecommunications firms to abandon the Shia rebels and pay the legitimate government operating from the temporary capital of Aden. As long as Iran is able or willing to make up enough of the lost Houthi income, the Houthis will continue. That is difficult for Iran because the Americans’ 2018 revival of economic sanctions turned out to be more of a burden than the religious dictatorship of Iran expected. That was made worse by covid19, which the Iranian clergy initially declared as something that only killed infidels (non-Moslems). This attitude enabled the virus to spread rapidly throughout Iran before the government acted. That led to more anti-government demonstrations and calls for less spending on foreign wars.
In Yemen there is also a war going on with Islamic terrorists. The remaining ones in Yemen belong to AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) or ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant). Both these terrorist groups are still around but largely keep their heads down in rural hideouts. Most of these are in central Yemen and areas to the east. Baida province used to be a major AQAP base area but not so much now as more AQAP factions disperse to other areas in central and eastern Yemen. Anywhere an Islamic terrorist can find a hospitable tribe, they can usually arrange refuge. AQAP has few active members left in Yemen and the only remaining local support is from some separatist Sunni tribes in the south and east. Since 2017 AQAP has been under heavy attack by the Americans and Arab coalition so the Islamic terrorists responded by shifting more of their attacks from Shia rebels to the government and Arab coalition forces. ISIL and AQAP were fighting each other a lot after mid-2018 but since early 2020 ISIL has not been very active. ISIL lost this war and some ISIL factions are known to be hiding out in Shia rebel territory. That requires offering some cooperation with the Shia rebels and that apparently includes useful intel on what is going on in the rest of Yemen, where ISIL still has fans. ISIL and AQAP are both trying to rebuild, especially after the losses, including defections, during their battles with each other. That’s another reason why Yemen is a slow-motion war made slower by hunger, disease and poverty.
The Houthis remain the best armed and most aggressive rebel force in Yemen. That and orders from their Iranian patron are why they have recently been firing their Iranian anti-ship missiles at commercial shipping and American destroyers in the Red Sea. These attacks started in November 2023 as the Houthis sought to avenge the October 2023 defeat of Hamas in Gaza, an area on the Mediterranean coast between Egypt and Israel.
