US admiral fears Yemen civil war widening into the Red Sea
The unmanned boat was likely supplied by Iran, Donegan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I don\u2019t know that it\u2019s Iranian-built, but I believe that it\u2019s production in some way was supported by Iran,” Donegan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Here\u2019s how I connect those dots. About a year ago we began and were successful in interdicting about four weapons shipments of things going to Yemen,” he said, noting that three of the shipments were intercepted by coalition partners of the US, while one shipment was intercepted by a US ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We allowed the United Nations access to all the weapons we got from one of the interdictions, and they published quite an extensive report,” Donegan said. “They said specifically that the weapons came from Iran and were destined for Yemen in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. That\u2019s not my assessment, that\u2019s the United Nations assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Secondly, the other three weapon shipments that were interdicted were examined by another independent group, the [U.K.-based] Conflict Armament Research. They\u2019ve also put out a report that almost said exactly the same thing. And they did this by analysis of the weapons and serial numbers and where they were manufactured and the instruction manuals, and the GPS waypoints of the systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“So we know that weapons were shipped from Iran to Yemen. The question is at what level and how many, etc. We know what was in the weapon inventory of Yemen before the conflict started, and the Yemenis didn\u2019t have a weapon that could range Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. That\u2019s an 800-kilometer ballistic missile shot, whereas the Scud missile, about 200 kilometers is what it can do. They had a rudimentary coastal defense missile. But most of their systems had atrophied. So they\u2019re being supported by Iran. Maybe there\u2019s others supporting them, I don\u2019t know. But for certain these things aren\u2019t indigenous, there are parts and components that need to be coming from other places to make them effective like this.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
The Houthis in western Yemen along the Red Sea coast have been widening the Yemeni civil war to threaten the large amount of international commercial shipping that passes through the Bab el Mandeb strait at the southern end of the Red Sea. Virtually all maritime traffic in and out of the Suez Canal between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean passes through the strait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is a region that is always in conflict,” Donegan said. “We\u2019re not here to maintain peace and stability. On the contrary, there are four, sometimes five active conflicts in the region going on. Most of our time is spent trying to get more peace and stability in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But over the 15 years of fighting we\u2019ve been doing on land, we haven\u2019t had the conflict spill into the maritime. What bothers me about Yemen is that you\u2019ve seen this conflict spilled into the maritime in several places. The problem is the potential impact on the flow of commerce. And that\u2019s not just our interest, it\u2019s a global interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What we have now is that non-nation-states get access to nation-state-like weapon systems, and that impacts the flow of commerce. You saw that in the attack on the motor vessel Swift on the 1<\/p>\n\n\n\nst<\/sup>\n\n\n\n of October, and you saw that again with this explosive boat that was used against the Saudi frigate Al-Madinah. My fear is they move to use that [weapon] against any kind of commerce that flows through [the southern Red Sea]. And even if they don\u2019t intend to, my fear is that it becomes a collateral damage, because they\u2019re not so good at identifying targets and things like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “With about 64 vessels a day travelling through there, the Bab al Mandeb, almost all with energy cargoes, any issue of misidentification or misapplication of one of these weapon systems could become an issue with commerce, and that\u2019s what we have to avoid. In the end what we\u2019d like to see is that conflict back into the land mass and not out into where we have commercial traffic.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n In January, Saudi Arabia, supporting the elected government of Yemen, began an offensive intended to drive the Houthis from the coastal regions along the Red Sea. The offensive has only been partially successful, and reports in the Arab media indicate the Houthis, as they evacuate an area, leave behind land and sea mines. There are fears that the sea mines, most of Soviet manufacture, are old and can break loose, drifting out into commercial shipping lanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “That\u2019s exactly the part of my worry about this conflict spilling into the maritime,” Donegan said. “It doesn\u2019t matter to us whether it\u2019s mines in the water or explosive boats in the water, that\u2019s a problem for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n “We\u2019ve often talked in the past about the Strait of Hormuz being closed up. But the Bab al Mandeb and the Red Sea are so important for a couple of reasons. For one you have this flow of commerce that goes up to the Suez Canal. Anything going through the Suez Canal is feeding the Egyptian economy. We really can\u2019t afford to have a reduction to the Eqyptian economy. It\u2019s fragile and we can\u2019t have that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The other piece that happens is, diverting around the Red Sea and Bab al Mandeb is something potentially that the oil industry may be able to accommodate with some initial cost, but industries like liquid natural gas, there is no excess capacity in the transporting of it, nor is there excess storage capacity at the destinations. So any kind of slowdown in traffic through the Bab al Mandeb is going to have a pretty quick impact on both the region but also on the global supply of energy. Because of that just-in-time liquid natural gas piece, there\u2019ll be a delay before the oil will be able to move in a different direction, and then you\u2019ll have the impact on the local economies that are getting their money \u2013 especially Egypt.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked if the US is stepping up interdiction actions, Donegan said, “No. But there are UN Security Council resolutions that compel all the nations that can to not allow weapons to go to Yemen. Very clear UN Security Council resolutions. So all the nations that can are compelled to not use their territory or waters for that use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We haven\u2019t changed what we do. We\u2019ve always had a focus on not allowing the maritime to be used for illicit purposes, especially those areas where we have UN Security Council resolutions that ask us to do that work.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked if the United States was preparing military operations against the Houthis, Donegan demurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be able to answer that for a whole bunch of reasons,” he said. “But suffice to say we\u2019re certainly concerned about it and we\u2019re doing prudent planning, not just ourselves but with our allies and partners in the region. We\u2019re really concerned now more than before because of this spillage into the maritime. And it doesn\u2019t have to be a military solution that gets to an end-state here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “If we can get the factions in Yemen together to get back on the peace track then you can get in and clean out the weapons that are there, the higher-end weapons that have gotten in there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n “My biggest concern now is you\u2019ve got nation-state-like weapons in the hands of non-nation-states. It\u2019s not in the hands of the duly-elected government of Yemen. Some of them because they were able to pick up inventories of other weapons, and some because they\u2019ve been augmented.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donegan was also asked about the US commitment to the Gulf region, a perennial concern among the US partners here, particularly after the “America first” language in President Trump\u2019s inaugural address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We\u2019re absolutely committed to stay here,” Donegan declared. “There\u2019s been no change in that in any way, shape or form, in my mind. We\u2019re battling the readiness issues of our service, because we\u2019ve used them pretty hard. But my headquarters is not going away. We\u2019ll have our ships out here in the region. We\u2019ll have the carrier strike group in and out. We still have permanently-homeported ships based here in the region. So we\u2019re not stepping in any way away from the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And America first means we\u2019re here because it\u2019s in America\u2019s interests. It doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re going to run back home and protect in a defensive way. It means we\u2019re going to be out and engaged so we can have influence in places, and where our interests are at stake we can be there when and where we\u2019re needed. That is not changing. I\u2019ve gotten zero indications of that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n And he added, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis\u2019 current visit to the region is “to emphasize those exact same things.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Houthi boat that attacked and hit a Saudi frigate Jan. 30 in the Red Sea, reported earlier as a suicide boat, was instead carried out by an unmanned, remote-controlled craft filled with explosives, the US Navy\u2019s top officer in the Mideast said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":36219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":12,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"coauthors":[947],"class_list":["post-15728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"GNBLOVQKJZCQTDT7DTNZPEWE7M","arc_canonical_url":"\/digital-show-dailies\/idex\/2017\/02\/19\/new-houthi-weapon-emerges-a-drone-boat\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n