Efforts to end Iraqi militias’ attacks on United States troops and Houthi attacks on commercial vessels have continued with limited success.
Iraqi militias have repeatedly launched attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria a recent strike last week targeting one of their leaders has not deterred the group from continuing those attacks. Simultaneously, the Houthis, which have carried out more than two dozen attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, continue to launch such operations in spite of a U.S. official characterized as a final warning statement from roughly a dozen governments.
Iraqi militias have launched 127 drone and rocket attacks at U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria since mid-October, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said on Tuesday. 75 of the attacks have taken place in Syria while 52 have been carried out in Iraq.
The U.S. military has carried out a series of airstrikes against the militia’s facilities, but last week, they targeted Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al-Jawari, a.k.a Abu Taqwa, who was a Harakat-al-Nujaba leader, in Baghdad, Iraq.
Since this strike on Jan. 4, there have been nine attacks against U.S. bases, Ryder added.
The Houthis carried out one of its largest attacks on Tuesday night, where they launched a complex attack that included one-way attack drones, anti-ship cruise missiles, and an anti-ship ballistic missile. Specifically, they launched eighteen unmanned aerial vehicles, two anti-ship cruise missiles, and one anti-ship ballistic missile toward the international shipping lanes where there were dozens of vessels transiting the area.
This was the largest Houthi attack since they began in mid-November.
They were “shot down by a combined effort of F/A-18s from USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS Gravely (DDG 107), USS Laboon (DDG 58), USS Mason (DDG 87), and the United Kingdom’s HMS Diamond (D34),” CENTCOM said in a statement.
This marked the Houthis’ twenty-sixth attack on commercial vessels since Nov. 19.
The governments of the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom released a statement on Jan. 3 that warned the Houthis continue attacks would result in them “bear[ing] the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways.”
A number of commercial shipping companies have debated and decided to temporarily avoid the region, which presents long-term concerns for the global economy. Instead, many shippers are having their tankers transit around the African continent instead of going through the Suez Canal. Roughly 10-15% of global seaborne trade passes through the Red Sea.
“We don’t telegraph our punches one way or another. But we take these attacks very, very seriously, the impact that they’re having on international commerce and — and free shipping. And we’re going to keep doing what we need to do to protect our interests,” national security council coordinator John Kirby told reporters a day after the statement was released. “As the statement said, the Houthis will be held accountable for the consequences.”
The U.S. military stood up Operation Prosperity Guardian, an international defensive task force that escorts commercial vessels through the Red Sea, but U.S. forces have not carried out any attacks against the Houthis.
“I think it’s been very insufficient,” former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told the Washington Examiner last week. “We’ve yet to respond beyond the self defense actions taken by the Navy last few days, but my view has been that we need to go after the the Houthis, attack the missile sites or the drone sites where they’re being launched or where they’re being stored, and inflict some punishment on them so that we can restore deterrence. Otherwise, the Houthis are going to continue to do what they’re doing because they face no punishment.”
Both the Houthis and the Iraqi militias have Iranian support, which also back Hezbollah and Hamas, which are both fighting Israeli forces.
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The U.S. surged assets and personnel to the Middle East following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel that brought the entire region to the brink of a war. Israel’s overwhelming military response to the attack in Gaza has infuriated its Arab neighbors, and the significant death toll, the Houthis say, is what prompted their attacks on commercial vessels.
All of this is taking place as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin remains hospitalized with complications from surgery to treat prostate cancer, though he has reassumed his duties.
