In a brazen display of support for their recent attacks in the Red Sea against the United States and Israel, thousands of Houthi followers, many of them armed, gathered in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, on Monday for a parade.
The rally, marked by waving guns and Palestinian flags, underscored the fervent backing for the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. As part of the demonstration, participants trampled over Israeli and American flags, expressing support for the armed resistance of the Palestinian Hamas movement against Israel.
The rally coincided with a Houthi claim that they had attacked a United States (US) Navy mobile base at sea, the USS Lewis B. Puller, in the Gulf of Aden.
Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree asserted that they fired a missile at the mobile base, which serves as a floating landing base. This attack was apparently in response to American efforts to curb Houthi assaults on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
However, a US defense official rejected the claim, stating that there had been no reported attack on the Puller. The USS Lewis B. Puller had recently served as a mobile base for a US Navy SEALs operation, during which Iranian-made ballistic missile and cruise missile components bound for Yemen were seized. Two SEALs involved in the operation went missing and are presumed dead.
The Houthi attacks have escalated since November, primarily targeting ships in the Red Sea in response to Israel's offensive in Gaza against Hamas. These attacks, however, have often targeted vessels with tenuous or no clear links to Israel, posing a threat to global trade routes between Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
Last Friday, the US military announced that Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a missile targeting a U.S. warship conducting patrols in the Gulf of Aden. A recent incident also involved the Houthis hitting a commercial vessel with a missile, resulting in a prolonged fire.
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US, British Retaliatory Strikes
The US military destroyed a Houthi anti-ship missile in Yemen that was poised to launch into the Red Sea after the group attacked a British oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden.
In light of the increasing threat posed by the Houthi rebels, the United States and Britain have initiated retaliatory strikes against the group. These strikes aim to dismantle the Houthi military capabilities that could be used to target commercial ships in the Red Sea.
The Biden administration, in a reversal of its 2021 decision, recently relisted the Houthi rebels as a specially designated global terrorist organization. The Houthi leadership, led by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, remains defiant, vowing to continue the attacks until the conflict in Gaza comes to an end.
The Houthi rebels, who seized Sanaa, in 2014, triggered a protracted and devastating war in Yemen. A Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015, aiming to restore Yemen's exiled, internationally recognized government to power, according to AP News.
However, the conflict has since devolved into a stalemated proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, causing widespread suffering to the Arab world's poorest country, Yemen.
The war has resulted in more than 150,000 casualties, including both fighters and civilians, and has created one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters. Despite a ceasefire technically ending over a year ago, sporadic hostilities persist. Peace talks, including a Houthi delegation invited to Riyadh in September, have yielded no permanent resolution.
