RIYADH ¨C Yemen¡¯s Houthi Movement ?aims to replicate Iran¡¯s Hormuz Strait strategy in the Red Sea by disrupting shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb and has been emboldened by an insufficient international response, Yemen¡¯s top diplomat said on Monday.
¡°The Houthis want ?to copy the Iranian model and this will shut down ?two main ?straits, the gateways into the Gulf and ?Red Sea,¡± Yemeni Foreign Minister-designate Afrah Al-Zouba said, speaking to a small group of journalists at the Yemeni embassy in the Saudi ?capital, Riyadh.
The Red Sea has become a new front in the Iran ?war, with the Houthis taking an escalatory approach against Saudi Arabia by firing missiles and drones at the ?kingdom and declaring a blockade ?on Saudi shipping. Saudi Arabia has responded with airstrikes on what it said were Houthi military facilities ?and said ?it would protect commercial shipping, accusing the Houthis ?of serving foreign agendas.
The escalation has also threatened to ?bring ?back conflict to Yemen, where war killed hundreds of thousands of people after the Houthis stormed the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting Saudi Arabia to intervene at the head of ?an Arab coalition. A truce was reached in 2022 but it has been pierced by the recent cross-border fire, and Saudi officials, Western diplomats and Yemeni officials see a return to full-scale war as more likely ?now ?than at any point since then.
Zouba said ?Yemen¡¯s government, which enjoys strong Saudi backing, was prepared for an ?escalation and that firing was taking place along the frontline, spanning the country¡¯s northwest from the Red Sea up to the Saudi border, but neither side had yet mounted an offensive. ¡°We ?think that this conflict now needs to come to an end, either via peaceful means, or the other way,¡± she said.?
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