US Shifting to a Ground Plot as Naval Coalition Failed against Yemen’s Ansarullah

Yemeni media reported bombing of Hudaydah by warplanes. In a breaking news, Ansarullah's Al-Masirah TV reported that American-British warplanes attacked Ras Issa neighborhood in Al Salif town in Hudaydah province.

As one of the most important provinces of Yemen, in addition to having a long coastline, Hudaydah has three vital ports, an international airport, and military bases.

This air raid took place after the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that three ballistic missiles and three drones fired by Ansarullah targeted the ships of this force, including the container ship MV Cyclades, the USS Philbin missile cruiser, and USS Laboon destroyer in the Red Sea, but caused no casualties. 

In the meantime, Sana'a has announced that it succeeded in targeting the Israeli ship MSC Orion in the Indian Ocean and MSC Darwin in the Gulf of Aden by drone and missile attacks. 

This came after Yemenis announced last Saturday that they hit the British oil tanker Andromeda Star in the Red Sea with sea missiles, as they targeted the Eilat port in the south of the occupied territories with missiles and drones. 

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Blinken said that his country will continue its attacks against Ansarullah targets until the group stops targeting Israeli ships in the Red Sea.

In January, the US announced a naval coalition, Guardian of Prosperity, in association with Britain, but was met with pessimism by the world countries, especially the Arab allies. As a result, Washington and London alone had to deploy their warships to the Red Sea.

But the actions of this ostensible coalition in successive bombing of areas in Yemen could not check Ansarullah's attacks on ships bound to the Israeli regime.

In this connection, Ansarullah leader Sayyed Abdul Malik al-Houthi announced last Thursday that the forces of this movement have succeeded in targeting 102 ships related to Israel in the Red and Arabian Seas, the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean during the past 202 days of the war. Thus means, every two days a ship was targeted in support of Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.

Still, with the Tuesday night's attacks by American-British coalition and CENTCOM's threat that these attacks will intensify in the coming hours and days, Ansarullah officials have warned about the serious consequences of any escalation by the US and Britain.

A member of Supreme Political Council of Ansarullah Mohammed Ali al-Houthi in a post on X warned: "Don't play with fire. All you expect from the strategic storage of Yemen's deterrent arms is way way way more than what you expect in terms of quantity, type, and quality." 

Before this, Mahdi al-Mashat, another Ansarullah official, had warned of escalation of tensions by the US in a statement.

Domestic sedition, a new American plot against Ansarullah 

These warnings by Yemeni officials coincided with entry to the King Sultan Air Base of a squadron of American F-16 fighter jets. The base is only 200 kilometers from the Yemeni border. 

Media sources close to the US-alligned Aden government said that the US and Britain have recently strengthened their contacts with the defense ministry of the Aden-based government. 

Ansarullah has considered the recent remarks by the president of Presidential Leadership Council Rashad al-Alimi who promised to push back the Sana’a-based National Salvation Government's forces from the areas under his control as an escalation of tension within the framework of the American policy. These remarks coincided with the visit of Lieutenant General Derek France, the commander of the US Ninth Air Force, to Riyadh and meeting with Lieutenant General Turki bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz, the commander of the Royal Saudi Air Force. 

Quoting military sources in Sana'a, Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported that the US preparations are in progress for a large-scale air invasion of Yemen, with support of ground attacks of thousands of militia groups loyal to the UAE in some fronts such as Taiz and Lahij and other regions. 

This newspaper quoted sources in Ansarullah as saying that the Yemeni movement is ready for any scenario of escalation. The US is seeking to cover up its failure to remove Red Sea blockade on Israel by launching such attack with support of thousands of UAE-loyal militia fighters, according to the newspaper. 

The source further said that along with arrival of supports to the UAE and Saudi-loyal forces over the past hours, the hallmarks of this ground operation on a number of fronts like Haifa in the west of Taiz, Lahij, Aden, and other fronts have emerged. In a Tuesday drone attack in Maghbaneh region in southwestern Taiz, two children and three women were killed. The attack appears to have been launched by these militias. 

Sana'a health ministry in a statement condemned the attack as a "serious violation" of the ceasefire agreement, now in its third year. 

The new US arms support for the UAE and Saudi-loyal militias in Yemen is not the only claim of the Yemeni authorities, and the White House implicitly accepted it. 

"I wouldn't characterize our context as a robust discussion at this point but we are using all sorts of means, some diplomatic, some by shooting down missiles and UAVs, to discourage the Houthis from their ill-considered venture," US Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf. 

Furthermore, political and military sources in Sana'a said that the military drills held over the past few days by the US, Israel, and Arab countries in AlDhafra Airbase in the UAE with Desert Flag 9 codename fall within this planning and described it as the "penultimate step" for full normalization between Saudi Arabia and the Israeli regime and as part of arrangements to announce a new military alliance in the region. 

"God had chosen the Yemenis for defeat of the United States" 

There is a prominent quotation that could be seen everywhere in mosques, billboards, and posts across the cities of Yemen since the Israeli war on Gaza began and Sana'a rose in support of the Palestinians: "God had chosen the Yemenis for defeat of the United States." 

This quotation or better to say slogan has shown efficiency in practice on the ground over the past months. A look at the events of the past 7 months shows that the American-British coalition has not only failed to completely stop the wave of Ansarullah's naval attacks, despite many claims about the destruction of Yemen's strategic weapons and infrastructure, but also even after months of struggle, major shipping companies, mainly Western and Israeli, are still not willing to return the Red Sea route, something proving that the upper hand of Ansarullah and failure of the US-led coalition. 

In this relation, a report published by National Interest is worth considering as it concludes from the Red Sea confrontation between the US and Ansarullah that "counting warships may no longer be the best guide for assessing a country’s ability to halt and control sea lanes."

In the National Interest's report, Ramon Mark, a retired New York international lawyer and author, admits that developing cheap anti-ship missiles and drones is "revolutionizng naval warfare" just as aircraft carriers did in the last century. Notwithstanding US naval firepower, Marks admits, Ansarullah are holding their own, and regularly attack the US warships that cost close to $1 billion to build. 

According to a report published by the Telegraph, Ansarullah enjoys the privilege of possession of land for its location on the Yemeni coasts. Actually, they are aware of and take advantage of the weather conditions and this gives them an upper hand. 

Meanwhile, the gamble of UAE and Saudi Arabia support for escalating American actions not only fails to yield political and military gains, but also, as warned by Ansarullah, risks expanding Yemeni military threats to their commercial ships, potentially causing significant economic damage to them.