Terror Inc.

When the ceasefire took effect on Jan. 19 between Israel and Hamas, the Houthi rebels in Yemen announced they would now limit their attacks on merchant vessels sailing the Red Sea to those linked to Israel.

They would now stop, the “sanctions,” they said, against other ships but would resume if Yemen was attacked or if the Gaza war restarted.

And a few days later, the Iran-backed Houthis who are allied with Hamas, released the 25-member crew of the Bahamian-flagged Galaxy Leader, which they stormed in November 2023 because of its links to an Israeli billionaire.

It was actually the capture of the Galaxy Leader that marked the start of their campaign to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea corridor, which has also resulted in the deaths of four sailors, the sinking of two ships, and attacks on more than 100 other vessels.

This campaign has upended one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes, which traverses the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden via the narrow Bab al-Mandeb Strait to connect Europe to Asia. It handles 12 percent of all global trade, worth $1 trillion.

Since the Houthi attacks started, shipping has dropped by 50 percent through the Suez Canal, with international cargo volumes falling by two-thirds as some ships choose a much longer and more expensive route around the southern tip of Africa.

Now, in spite of the Houthis’ pledge to halt most attacks, many of those ships aren’t likely to return, and in part because of the ceasefire’s fragility, wrote Reuters.

“There is no way I’m putting any of my merchandise on a boat that’s going to go through the Red Sea for some time to come,” Jay Foreman, CEO of Basic Fun, which supplies toys to major American retailers like Walmart, told Reuters. “I’ll spend the extra money, and I’ll send everything around the tip of Africa … It’s just not worth taking a chance.”

Analysts say it’s not likely the Houthis will stop: Terrorizing ships has become a very lucrative business model, one “built to last.”

“The Houthis are holding Red Sea shipping to ransom, notionally in solidarity with the Palestinians, but in reality to extract income from the industry and exert influence over the region,” the Economist wrote, estimating that the costs to the global economy amounted to around $200 billion in 2024. “The Houthis are surprisingly sophisticated, are exploring new weapons technology – and are in it for the long run.”

This maritime protection racket is bringing in more than $2 billion a year, the United Nations estimates, by shaking down shipowners, many of whom are paying to be left alone.

Meanwhile, as they rake in the money, the country the Houthis now dominate is in economic shambles. Yemen continues to maintain an uneasy truce since a UN-mediated ceasefire in 2022 ended the decade-long civil war, a war that killed more than 377,000 people and displaced 4.5 million, but the truce hasn’t resolved the country’s underlying issues. “The current dynamic is a stark reminder that the threat of a return to full-scale war remains ever-present,” a UN official said.

Now, the resulting humanitarian crisis from the war is getting worse, added the UN, with 10 million people currently facing starvation.

The Houthi, officially known as Ansar Allah, have come a long way since they were “holed up in caves” in the mountains of northern Yemen 21 years ago, trying to survive under a blistering bombardment from Yemeni government forces, noted Vox.

Then, they began an insurgency when a dissident cleric from the minority Zaidi Shiite sect launched an uprising against the Yemeni government, at the time headed by longtime Yemeni strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, because of grievances against the majority Sunni population.

In the years following 2011, when Saleh was ousted after more than 30 years in power by a popular revolution, Yemen became carved up between various factions backed by external players such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In 2014, allied with the ousted Saleh, the Houthis took over the capital.

The Saudis and their allies began a war to dislodge the Houthis in 2015 because they worried about encroaching Iranian influence and wanted to reinstate the UN-backed, internationally recognized government. However, the 2022 truce left the Houthis as the dominant force in the country, with a steady supply of weapons including missiles and drones being supplied by Iran, a claim that Iran denies.

They have used those missiles to fire at Israel over the past year, with serious consequences for Israel’s economy in spite of most of those missiles being intercepted.

Meanwhile, those attacks widened their appeal to many Yemenis, say analysts.

“By opposing what many in the population of northern Yemen perceive as foreign forces, including the US, United Kingdom, and the Saudi-led coalition, and directly confronting Israel in support of Gaza, the Houthis have gained popularity,” Middle East analyst Mohammed al-Basha of the Navanti consultancy told the BBC.

He doesn’t see a motivation for them to stop the attacks, he told Vox, as the strikes in the Red Sea allow the Houthis to “disrupt economic activity, extract political concessions, and bolster their standing as defenders of Palestinians and Yemenis. These motivations would likely persist regardless of ceasefires elsewhere.”

At the same time, the Houthis are arming al Qaeda, giving the militants a safe haven and other resources to attack and weaken the Yemeni government and increase their own power, according to a UN report. They are also receiving help from Russia and expanding ties to other terrorist organizations such as al Shaabab to “emerge as an increasingly serious threat to regional and global security,” wrote the Soufan Center.

As a result, some analysts believe that now may be the time to act against the Houthis and resolve the standoff in the Red Sea. But few can agree on how. The US, the UK, Israel, and the Saudis have already tried with bombs and missiles over the past few years.

Proponents of action say the “axis of resistance,” a network of Iranian proxies fighting the West, is collapsing due to the decline of influence of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria, which really means the decline of influence of Iran. Also, some say that Iran, which along with Russia has supplied the Houthis with targeting intelligence and arms, is losing interest in the Houthis.

Still, last week, the vice-president of the UN-backed Yemeni government said the West should strike at the Houthis now, while it still can, and before their power grows even further. “(The Iranians) have one remaining domain and that is Yemen,” Aidarus al-Zoubaidi told the Guardian. “Now is the time to counter the Houthis and push them back.”