10tothe22
Steve HermanA missile was launched from Yemen toward Israeli territory this morning , marking the first such attack by the Iran-backed Houthis since the war began. https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-891453
Infoseepage@newsguyusa Doubt that the Houthis are actually in a position to do much, but a rock coming at you from a different directions is a distraction and Israel is going to have to decide where they want to allocate resources.
GM7077@Infoseepage @newsguyusa The Bab al-Mandab Strait is one of the busiest and most critical shipping lanes in the world...
@GM7077 @newsguyusa Oh, believe me, I've followed the houthi saga in great detail. The houthis own independent manufacturing capacity is quite limited and was reliant on parts smuggled to them by Iran. Towards the end of their their prior interdiction efforts, they were mostly limited to isolated drone strikes and sending out small vessels to harass ships, with limited capacity for boarding or serious structural damage.
@GM7077 @newsguyusa Actual passage was mostly hindered by large increases in war risk insurance, which made it cheaper to pay crews extra and pay for more fuel to go the long way around than it was to pay the insurance costs. I've yet to see evidence that the Houthis have rebuilt their capacity to a point where they might be more than an irritant. Iran is a very different kettle of fish and they have a much greater capacity to impact shipping than the Houthis had with Suez and the Red Sea.
@GM7077 @newsguyusa To me, this seems largely a symbolic show of solidarity with Iran yeah maybe an attempt to get Israel to shift some air defense assets. I don't really see this as "The Houthis are back!" or opening up a new theater in the overall conflict. We're pretty much in a state where everything in the Middle East is on fire and in danger all the time now.