The chief of Yemen’s Houthis, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, stated on Thursday the group’s operations concentrating on vessels will escalate to stop Israel-linked ships from passing by the Indian Ocean in the direction of the Cape of Good Hope.
“Our main battle is to prevent ships linked to the Israeli enemy from passing through not only the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, but also the Indian Ocean towards the Cape of Good Hope. This is a major step and we have begun to implement our operations related to it,” al-Houthi stated in a televised speech.
The Iran-aligned group has been attacking ships within the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November in what they are saying is a marketing campaign of solidarity with Palestinians throughout Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
Around 34 Houthi members have been killed for the reason that group started the assaults, al-Houthi added.
Months of Houthi assaults within the Red Sea have disrupted world delivery, forcing corporations to re-route to longer and dearer journeys round southern Africa, and stoked fears that the Israel-Hamas conflict might unfold to destabilise the broader Middle East.
The turmoil from Israel’s conflict with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has spilled over to some extent into different components of the Middle East. Apart from the Houthi assaults on very important delivery lanes, Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group has traded fireplace with Israel alongside the Israel-Lebanon border and pro-Iran Iraqi militia have attacked bases that host U.S. forces.
The United States and Britain have launched strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen and redesignated the militia as a terrorist group.
(Reuters – Reporting by Enas Alashray and Ahmed Tolba; Editing by Leslie Adler)
