Ceasefires are good. They mean the shooting and the killing stops. The problem is that they often only suit one side, which may need an opportunity to reorganise and rearm. Back in March, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire in the Black Sea. This allowed the Russian Black Sea Fleet to come out of hiding and restock, putting Ukraine, which had restored freedom of navigation there, on the back foot.
Similarly, the recent uneasy ceasefire between the Houthis and the US initially looked positive and resulted in a large reduction in missiles fired at international ships, but it gave the terrorists time to reorganise and rearm. As quickly as they could say, “this is all about Israel” they then broke the ceasefire by attacking two ships with only tangential links to Israel, sinking both and killing nine mariners.
How did they re-arm though? This is one of two questions that have been asked since the Houthis started this latest campaign back in October 2023: where are they getting their weapons from and, less frequently asked but perhaps more important, why are they not being stopped?
The answer to the first part is as easy as it is obvious – the weapons come from Iran. There is UN evidence based on recovered missile remnants and seized propellant materials to prove this, as if it were needed. What is less clear is which parts the Houthis can now make on their own and which parts they still need either Iranian assistance or components for.
In general the simpler it is, the more likely it is to have been manufactured in Yemen. China is in the picture here with some of the engines coming from there and there are even reports that technology has been exchanged for guarantees of safe passage through the Southern Red Sea.
Some analysis has shown that for the simpler drones, the Houthis have become net exporters now. But for the more complex systems, such as anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, they are dependent on Iran for parts and manufacture. The better the weapons capability, the higher the likelihood that some of the weapon at least originated in Russia or China.
So why have we not done better at either stopping local manufacture or interdicting imports? For the former, Yemen is a vast, mountainous country with a huge coastline and porous borders. There is a temptation to assume that intelligence agencies know where everything is these days. In reality that is rarely the case.
The Houthis, like all Iran’s proxy forces, are good at hiding underground and amongst civilian populations. There is no doubt that the huge and expensive campaign initiated by the US on 6 March of this year degraded their manufacturing capability and destroyed weapons stocks but even after being pounded by a billion dollars’ worth of American munitions they are still able to shoot back. This shows beyond all doubt that an aerial campaign in isolation will never truly suppress them, no matter how violent.
As for interdicting their supplies, the Houthis have also upped their Automatic Identification System (AIS ship-tracking) deception game. A UN panel of experts recently described the amount of material flowing into the ports of Hodeidah and Saleef as “unprecedented”. Much of the smuggling is done by small vessels of around 400 tons displacement. You only need to look at a snapshot of a marine tracker website to see how easily this sort of vessel can hide in plain sight.
And now the Houthis and their smuggler allies are complicating this further by fitting the wrong sort of AIS transponder. Vessels over 300 tons should have a full Class A transponder, but smuggling ships are fitting themselves with Class B transponders intended for yachts and small craft. These don’t require as much data to be transmitted. Class B kit does transmit a Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) number which is supposed to be unique to each vessel but this also can be falsified. A Lloyds List investigation has shown that one vessel in particular, the Almas, had both Class A and Class B systems fitted and was toggling between the two. This is hardly sophisticated electronic warfare but it’s definitely deceptive and, a lot of the time, effective given the sheer volume of ships at sea at any one time.
Even calling in to Djibouti and being inspected prior by the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen (UNVIM) is no guarantee of righteousness. Vessels have done this and then met up with any one of a thousand non-AIS-fitted dhows between there and their destination port in Yemen and transferred systems at sea. It’s a needle-in-a-haystack job that a small UNVIM team with no enforcement capability would struggle to keep up with even before the needles start making themselves look like hay. And this is only one route in.
There are two solutions that will help with this. First is to reinvigorate an international inspection regime off the ports like the one Saudi Arabia had in place prior to 2022. As with dark fleet ships and those cutting cables, you still need something of a legal mechanism in place to board and detain them, but unless we get that in place, we will forever be playing catch up.
The ships doing this will need to be defended and armed. I’m not talking about a US Arleigh Burke class destroyer level, but something with teeth.
Of note, during the last two attacks, there were no warships in the area to either intercept the attacks or assist afterwards. All allied navies now, even the US Navy, cannot spare resources for “just in case” tasks and the supposed ceasefire saw everyone move away from the area. Ultimately it comes down to international cooperation and funding and what’s clear in this case, is that both are insufficient.
The second solution is to stop trusting AIS as providing accurate records of where a ship has been. It can’t do that. It was designed primarily as an anti-collision system, informing nearby vessels of a ship’s presence and its course and speed, and for that it works pretty well. But twenty years ago its lack of accuracy made it inadmissible in UK courts even for fishery protection cases. Today it has shown itself as vulnerable to jamming, spoofing and general misuse as you’d expect from a system designed so long ago and never intended to be used for identification and tracking over entire journeys.
What’s frustrating is that there are many better sources of data, and sometimes these are used, but invariably, due to the diversity of sources they use, the end product is classified and cannot be publicly revealed. This needs to be rectified or weapons smugglers, sanctions busters and cable cutters will continue to exploit the holes in the current system. That brings us back to international cooperation and funding, which itself will be determined by priorities. You can cost what closing the Bab El Mandeb means for shippers and consumers, and for many classes of goods we are now paying that price and have been for a long time. You can’t cost the principle of allowing a major chokepoint to remain closed.
It’s not all doom and gloom. Just this week, the Yemeni National Resistance Forces (NRF), led by General Tareq Saleh and loyal to the internationally recognised Yemeni government which continues to resist the Houthis, conducted what US Central Command described as “the largest seizure of Iranian advanced conventional weapons in their history.” Some 750 tons of munitions and military hardware, much of which sat at the higher end of the capability spectrum outlined above, has now been impounded. Much will be learned from this haul, as well as denying its use to the Houthis.
Ultimately, what is needed here is what has been needed all along – a comprehensive solution. I’ve outlined just two parts of this – more aggressive interdiction and more accurate vessel monitoring, but these need to be merged with ongoing intelligence gathering, diplomatic efforts with surrounding countries and an economic squeeze on the facilitators and beneficiaries, of which there are many. Only then will we be sure that a ceasefire isn’t just an opportunity for one side to rearm.
Ceasefires are good. They mean the shooting and the killing stops. The problem is that they often only suit one side, which may need an opportunity to reorganise and rearm. Back in March, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire in the Black Sea. This allowed the Russian Black Sea Fleet to come out of hiding and restock, putting Ukraine, which had restored freedom of navigation there, on the back foot.
Similarly, the recent uneasy ceasefire between the Houthis and the US initially looked positive and resulted in a large reduction in missiles fired at international ships, but it gave the terrorists time to reorganise and rearm. As quickly as they could say, “this is all about Israel” they then broke the ceasefire by attacking two ships with only tangential links to Israel, sinking both and killing nine mariners.
How did they re-arm though? This is one of two questions that have been asked since the Houthis started this latest campaign back in October 2023: where are they getting their weapons from and, less frequently asked but perhaps more important, why are they not being stopped?
The answer to the first part is as easy as it is obvious – the weapons come from Iran. There is UN evidence based on recovered missile remnants and seized propellant materials to prove this, as if it were needed. What is less clear is which parts the Houthis can now make on their own and which parts they still need either Iranian assistance or components for.
In general the simpler it is, the more likely it is to have been manufactured in Yemen. China is in the picture here with some of the engines coming from there and there are even reports that technology has been exchanged for guarantees of safe passage through the Southern Red Sea.
Some analysis has shown that for the simpler drones, the Houthis have become net exporters now. But for the more complex systems, such as anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, they are dependent on Iran for parts and manufacture. The better the weapons capability, the higher the likelihood that some of the weapon at least originated in Russia or China.
So why have we not done better at either stopping local manufacture or interdicting imports? For the former, Yemen is a vast, mountainous country with a huge coastline and porous borders. There is a temptation to assume that intelligence agencies know where everything is these days. In reality that is rarely the case.
The Houthis, like all Iran’s proxy forces, are good at hiding underground and amongst civilian populations. There is no doubt that the huge and expensive campaign initiated by the US on 6 March of this year degraded their manufacturing capability and destroyed weapons stocks but even after being pounded by a billion dollars’ worth of American munitions they are still able to shoot back. This shows beyond all doubt that an aerial campaign in isolation will never truly suppress them, no matter how violent.
As for interdicting their supplies, the Houthis have also upped their Automatic Identification System (AIS ship-tracking) deception game. A UN panel of experts recently described the amount of material flowing into the ports of Hodeidah and Saleef as “unprecedented”. Much of the smuggling is done by small vessels of around 400 tons displacement. You only need to look at a snapshot of a marine tracker website to see how easily this sort of vessel can hide in plain sight.
And now the Houthis and their smuggler allies are complicating this further by fitting the wrong sort of AIS transponder. Vessels over 300 tons should have a full Class A transponder, but smuggling ships are fitting themselves with Class B transponders intended for yachts and small craft. These don’t require as much data to be transmitted. Class B kit does transmit a Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) number which is supposed to be unique to each vessel but this also can be falsified. A Lloyds List investigation has shown that one vessel in particular, the Almas, had both Class A and Class B systems fitted and was toggling between the two. This is hardly sophisticated electronic warfare but it’s definitely deceptive and, a lot of the time, effective given the sheer volume of ships at sea at any one time.
Even calling in to Djibouti and being inspected prior by the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen (UNVIM) is no guarantee of righteousness. Vessels have done this and then met up with any one of a thousand non-AIS-fitted dhows between there and their destination port in Yemen and transferred systems at sea. It’s a needle-in-a-haystack job that a small UNVIM team with no enforcement capability would struggle to keep up with even before the needles start making themselves look like hay. And this is only one route in.
There are two solutions that will help with this. First is to reinvigorate an international inspection regime off the ports like the one Saudi Arabia had in place prior to 2022. As with dark fleet ships and those cutting cables, you still need something of a legal mechanism in place to board and detain them, but unless we get that in place, we will forever be playing catch up.
The ships doing this will need to be defended and armed. I’m not talking about a US Arleigh Burke class destroyer level, but something with teeth.
Of note, during the last two attacks, there were no warships in the area to either intercept the attacks or assist afterwards. All allied navies now, even the US Navy, cannot spare resources for “just in case” tasks and the supposed ceasefire saw everyone move away from the area. Ultimately it comes down to international cooperation and funding and what’s clear in this case, is that both are insufficient.
The second solution is to stop trusting AIS as providing accurate records of where a ship has been. It can’t do that. It was designed primarily as an anti-collision system, informing nearby vessels of a ship’s presence and its course and speed, and for that it works pretty well. But twenty years ago its lack of accuracy made it inadmissible in UK courts even for fishery protection cases. Today it has shown itself as vulnerable to jamming, spoofing and general misuse as you’d expect from a system designed so long ago and never intended to be used for identification and tracking over entire journeys.
What’s frustrating is that there are many better sources of data, and sometimes these are used, but invariably, due to the diversity of sources they use, the end product is classified and cannot be publicly revealed. This needs to be rectified or weapons smugglers, sanctions busters and cable cutters will continue to exploit the holes in the current system. That brings us back to international cooperation and funding, which itself will be determined by priorities. You can cost what closing the Bab El Mandeb means for shippers and consumers, and for many classes of goods we are now paying that price and have been for a long time. You can’t cost the principle of allowing a major chokepoint to remain closed.
It’s not all doom and gloom. Just this week, the Yemeni National Resistance Forces (NRF), led by General Tareq Saleh and loyal to the internationally recognised Yemeni government which continues to resist the Houthis, conducted what US Central Command described as “the largest seizure of Iranian advanced conventional weapons in their history.” Some 750 tons of munitions and military hardware, much of which sat at the higher end of the capability spectrum outlined above, has now been impounded. Much will be learned from this haul, as well as denying its use to the Houthis.
Ultimately, what is needed here is what has been needed all along – a comprehensive solution. I’ve outlined just two parts of this – more aggressive interdiction and more accurate vessel monitoring, but these need to be merged with ongoing intelligence gathering, diplomatic efforts with surrounding countries and an economic squeeze on the facilitators and beneficiaries, of which there are many. Only then will we be sure that a ceasefire isn’t just an opportunity for one side to rearm.