As the Houthis sink two ships in one week, the world shrugs
The lack of response illustrates how difficult it is to stop them by force
The Economist |DUBAI Photograph: EPA/Shutterstock
IT WAS a short-lived surrender. Earlier this year America carried out more than 1,000 strikes against the Houthis, an Iranian-backed militia in Yemen. The group had kept up a year-long series of attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, ostensibly to protest against Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. American bombing was meant to dissuade them from future mayhem. When Donald Trump unexpectedly announced a ceasefire on May 6th, he said the Houthis had agreed to just that: “They have capitulated,” the president said. “They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore.”
Exactly two months later, they blew up a ship. On July 6th Houthi gunmen boarded the Magic Seas, a bulk carrier, and rigged it with explosives (see map). The next day they attacked another vessel, the Eternity C, with naval drones and rocket-propelled grenades. It sank on July 9th. Nine of its 25 sailors are dead or missing. Six others were probably kidnapped by the Houthis.
The group sank just two ships in all of 2024, and none since last June. Now they have sunk two in less than a week. Yet the world’s reaction has largely been to shrug—a sign of how much the Houthis have already roiled global shipping, and how difficult it is to stop them by force.
The timing of these latest attacks was not random. The ceasefire gave the Houthis two months to regroup. They largely sat on the sidelines during last month’s war between Israel and Iran. With that conflict over, America is pruning its forces in the region: it has already withdrawn several guided-missile destroyers, which helped to shield commercial ships.
This was an opportune moment for the Houthis to remind everyone that they can still menace the Red Sea. A show of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza remains a useful distraction from Yemen’s own problems—even though targeted ships often have only a tenuous connection to Israel.
Neither the Magic Seas nor the Eternity C had made a recent stop there. The former was hauling fertiliser and steel from China to Turkey; the latter had just finished a humanitarian delivery for the World Food Programme in Somalia. But their owners (two Greek firms) operate other ships that continue to call at Israeli ports. Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the group’s leader, said in a televised speech that more such attacks were coming.
That will scare off the Western firms that had begun to contemplate a return to the Red Sea. A total of 244 commercial ships passed through the waterway between July 7th and July 13th. That is up slightly from 232 the week before, according to Lloyd’s List, a shipping journal. But it is around 50% lower than an average week in the summer of 2023, before the Houthis started their attacks.
America has not done much, beyond a few chiding statements. Officials in the region believe Mr Trump is unlikely to order more attacks on the Houthis unless they fire at American vessels, and there are not many of those about. Israel has kept up occasional air strikes on Yemen, but they are too sporadic to have much effect.
Both countries are learning what Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates did a decade ago: the Houthis are hard to uproot. American strikes destroyed some of their arsenal, but they still have ample smuggling routes from Iran, which delivers either by sea or overland through Oman.
On July 16th the National Resistance Forces, a coalition of anti-Houthi militias, announced that they had seized 750 tonnes of arms bound for the group. It was an impressive effort—but also a reminder of how much slips through unnoticed. As long as the Houthis have a stockpile of weapons and the will to use them, they can continue to cause chaos in the Red Sea. ■
