The Strait: Containing Threats in Bab al-Mandab

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The Strait

Containing Threats in Bab al-Mandab

Writer : Dr. Amani el-Taweel

Monday, July 16, 2018

Currently Bab al-Mandab is witnessing an unprecedented escalation of threats endangering the global trade movement passing through the strait. The technological advancement associated with naval mines emerges as an effective tool in flaring up this threat.

While maritime threats in this region have been common throughout the last three decades in the Red Sea, yet the threat actors have changed significantly. The threats emanating from piracy and al-Shabab movement receded, while the Houthis’ threats to the strait have been on the rise.

Nature of Threats

1. Military threats: Military threats in Bab al-Mandeb have spiked since October 2017, as the Houthi militias started launching missiles and planting naval mines, as well as attacking Gulf vessels using drones. This threatened one of the vessels operated by UAE, Swift, which operated as a landing pad for troops and logistics center. In the ensuing weeks, the US Navy intercepted three similar assaults. In addition, it launched Tomahawk missile strikes to destroy the coastal radar sites responsible for gathering information needed by Houthis to carry out such attacks. https://futureuae.com/en-US/Mainpage/Item/4083/the-strait-containing-threats-in-bab-al-mandab#_edn1

Furthermore, a Saudi frigate was targeted off the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeidah at the end of January 2018 by a remotely controlled drone similar to those used by Iranian smugglers in the Strait of Hormuz. The US military ships, which cross the Strait of Hormuz, are frequently harassed by small boats from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Navy, using an unmanned, remotely-controlled boat.

Given these risks, the US government has advised that Bab al-Mandeb Strait should be crossed during daylight hours only, amid growing threats to vessels.

2. Economic threats: According to the Annual Energy Report issued by Columbia University, the closure of Bab al-Mandeb as a waterway, even temporarily, can lead to significant increases in total energy costs and global energy prices. [ii] The closure of the strait hinder the passage of the Arabian Gulf oil through either the Suez Canal, or the Sumed pipeline, thereby increasing the transit time and cost. In addition, European and Southern African oil flows will no longer be able to reach Asian markets through the Suez Canal and Bab al-Mandeb. Based on economic forecasts, the cost of shipping will increase by USD 45 million per day, plus the higher freight costs due to the longer route taken by the
tankers by about 6000 nautical miles.

For Egypt, Bab al-Mandeb strait has an additional significance as the country maintains its electricity supply through relying on the imported liquefied natural gas passing through the strait. Egypt receives one tanker of LNG weekly passing through Bab al-Mandab, thus Egypt is concerned about any attempts to obstruct the passage to protect its LNG imports. [iii]

Threat Actors

1. The Iranian role: Iran has worked on expanding its presence in the Horn of Africa after 2006 Lebanon war, in
anticipation of regional and international reactions to the outcome of that war. As a result, Tehran worked on charting a new map for its naval influence, expanding beyond its limited presence in the Arabian Gulf and coastal waters of the Indian Ocean. Elements of the naval forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been stationed in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008, when they dispatched the first warship to carry out anti-piracy patrols in response to Somali pirates seizing Iranian cargo ship. [iv]

The Iranian strategy in the Red Sea formulated in 2009 after holding the Iranian-Djiboutian summit, which was culminated with signing a memorandum of understanding for mutual cooperation. This cooperation allowed Iran to create military training centers that aimed to create what was known as the African Revolutionary Guards. In addition, the Central Bank of Iran granted loans to the Central Bank of Djibouti and the two countries agreed to establish a joint committee contributing to the development of Djibouti. [v]

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The StraitContaining Threats in Bab al-Mandab

 

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Another factor that contributed to the expansion of the Iranian role in the Red Sea was the growing relations with the Houthis in Yemen. The Iranian support to Houthis has played a major role in turning them into an armed militia, threatening the Yemeni national security, as well as the national security of the GCC. This has led the Arab Coalition to take actions to thwart the growing Iranian role in Yemen.

2. Somali’s al-Shabaab movement: After a period of relative calm, al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen movement made a strong comeback in Somalia with the attacks that took place in October and November 2017. Attacks launched by the movement are the deadliest since 2007 in terms of the magnitude of destruction and losses, which carry strong messages for the movement’s foes at home and abroad.

These terrorist attacks indicate a desire to prevent the administration of the Somali President Mohamed Abdullah Farmajo from completing its term.

Al-Shabaab is seeking as well to force the states participating in African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to withdraw their forces, which has already been done by Sierra Leone while Kenya and Uganda still resist. The attempts of al-Shabaab to undermine the nascent efforts to establish state institutions in Somalia pose a major threat to all Gulf States, as the chances of terrorist attacks in the region are on the rise.

“The U.N. Security Council’s sanctions monitoring team, which tracks compliance with U.N. sanctions on Somalia and Eritrea, found in 2013 that most Iranian weapons deliveries are coming into northern Somalia - that is, the autonomous Puntland and Somaliland regions – after which they are moved farther south into Shabaab strongholds.”[vi]

Thus, the Iranians continue to expand their disruptive influence in the region by arming violent extremist organizations.

Containing Threats

Given the increasing Iranian military role in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has sought to widen the military confrontation to Djibouti, with the aim of setting up a military base on its territory facing Yemen, on the other side of Bab al-Mandeb strait, to thwart any naval threats against its military operations in Yemen. Djibouti’s Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Ali Yusuf confirmed these endeavours, saying that his government agreed in principle to establish a Saudi base in Djibouti.

A draft security, military and strategic agreement between them has already been drafted and will be signed soon he added.

UAE as well established a base in the Eritrean port of Assab, in order to support the current military operations in Yemen, as well as to step up their military presence in the region[vii] and guaranteeing the security of oil exports passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait. [viii]

The UAE has used this base to launch military operations, including airstrikes in southern Yemen, while the Emirati combat ships were involved in enforcing naval blockade of the Yemeni ports of Hodeidah and Mokha. [ix] This military operation, dubbed as Golden Victory, is intended to liberate the city from the Iran-backed Houthi militia. "The liberation of the port is the start of the fall of the Houthi militia and will secure marine shipping in Bab Al Mandab strait and cut off the hands of Iran, which has long drowned Yemen in weapons that shed precious Yemeni blood", said Yemen’s government in a statement announced by Saba news agency. [x]

Other Regional countries like Egypt began to pay attention to the security of the horn of Africa. This was evident in the Egyptian announcement, in January 2017, of the Southern Fleet commander center at Safaga Naval base in the Red Sea governorate.

This naval force included Mistral, which clearly reveals that in the Egyptian strategic calculation the security situation might necessitate such intervention.

Furthermore the purpose of creating the Southern Fleet Command was not only to ‎facilitate the management of maritime traffic but to strengthen Egypt’s deterrent capacities in the ‎face of the threats in the Red Sea region, especially in the vicinity of Bab Al-Mandeb given the ‎deterioration in the state of security of Yemen. [xi]

Finally, it could be argued that in the face of the rising maritime threats in the southern entrance of Red sea, regional countries, especially Arab Gulf States, have managed to pacify with a high degree of success the current threats, whether in the face of Iran or Armed non-state actors.

 

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Bab al-Mandab Shipping Chokepoint Under Threat
Jeremy Vaughan and Simon Henderson

Also available in العربية

March 1, 2017

Reports of Yemeni rebel mining activity are only the latest in a string of threats to international vessels transiting the narrow link between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean.

On February 9, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence issued an alert warning commercial vessels about the risk of mines in the Bab al-Mandab Strait: "The U.S. Government has reason to believe in late January, mines were laid by Houthi rebels in Yemeni territorial waters in the Red Sea close to the mouth of Mocha harbor." The alert follows a number of other troubling incidents in the strategic waterway over the past few months. Saudi and Emirati naval vessels have been attacked while trying to enforce a blockade on the Iranian-supported Houthi rebels who control large parts of Yemen. And last October, patrolling U.S. Navy ships were targeted as well. Diplomatic efforts to end Yemen's civil war appear to be getting nowhere, and the fighting on land is largely deadlocked, though forces loyal to the internationally recognized government of President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi recently captured Mocha port near the Bab al-Mandab.

Iran's motives for helping the Houthis are unclear but have the effect of challenging Saudi Arabia, which views the fighting as a proxy war. More incidents at sea, especially involving civilian shipping, could further internationalize the conflict and spur other actors to intervene. In terms of capability and tradition, the leadership role in any such effort to safeguard freedom of passage would necessarily be taken by the U.S. Navy.

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THE THREATS
Houthi rebels have attacked warships in or near the strait on at least four occasions since last fall. On October 1, antishipping cruise missiles fired from the Houthi-controlled coastline severely damaged the Swift, an Emirati-operated troop landing and logistics ship. In the following weeks, the destroyer USS Mason successfully defended itself against three similar attacks. The U.S. Navy launched a Tomahawk missile strike to knock out coastal radar sites that may have provided targeting information for the attacks. No further antishipping missile attacks have been reported since then, but radar sites can be rebuilt, and the Houthis' stores of such missiles have not been destroyed, so the threat remains.

Additional threats have emerged in the past few weeks and may already be affecting international shipping patterns. The recent U.S. government warning about mines in the Bab al-Mandab advised ships to transit the strait only during daylight. Moored mines have a notorious tendency to break free of their tethers and could ramp up the risk to all ships in the area.

Another new threat surfaced when a Saudi frigate was attacked off the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida on January 30. Initially thought to be a suicide speedboat, the attacker is now assumed to have been a remote-controlled drone craft similar to the type Iranian smugglers employ to pick up contraband from Oman's Musandam Peninsula in the Strait of Hormuz, a Persian Gulf chokepoint. The UAE also has such craft (which it uses for target practice), so it is conceivable that the attack was conducted by a lost Emirati boat recovered by Iran. U.S. warships transiting the Strait of Hormuz are routinely harassed by small boats from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN), but weaponized speedboat drones, known in the military as unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), change the danger profile into a credible threat. An attacking USV must be disabled at distance from a warship's hull, a task that could prove exceptionally difficult during a swarming attack by multiple boats.

Furthermore, Iran's familiarity with explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) means that such technology may soon be seen at sea. Fortunately, the difficulty in remotely placing such a narrowly focused explosive against a target's hull mitigates some of the risk; this could explain why the January 30 attack seemed to result in such minor damage, assuming an EFP was on board. Even so, an EFP-laden USV that gets through a ship's defenses could sink it.

RESPONSES
Any future cruise missile attacks on U.S. vessels should be met with additional strikes on radar control sites and other shore installations.

Reconnaissance assets patrolling Yemen's shorelines, ports, and waterways should be ready and able to destroy cruise missiles that actively threaten shipping and maritime forces. Any detected storage sites for mines would also be a worthwhile target.

Meanwhile, the United States should ramp up military training, tactics, and procedure transfer to the Saudi and Emirati navies, drawing on the U.S. Navy's long experience defending against small-boat threats.

Improved ship and helicopter weapons systems optimized for medium-range surface engagement would help the Saudi-led coalition increase their ships' resilience to those threats as well, though such transfers and related training would take time.

A cooperative minesweeping mission should be considered as well. Such joint efforts in the area are not new -- in 1984, for example, several ships reported seeing mines between the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandab, prompting an international mine countermeasures campaign.

After much searching, several mines dating back as far as World War II were found, but British minesweepers also discovered a newly laid, advanced Soviet mine that was later traced to a Libyan ferry.

Since 2012, the U.S. and British navies have spearheaded the annual International Mine Countermeasures Exercise in the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, and Red Sea, now the largest such maritime exercise in the world.

Thirty nations from six continents participated in 2016.

This year's IMCMEX (whose date remains undisclosed for now) is an opportunity to send a strong signal about international commitment to security in the Bab al-Mandab.

Now that Mocha harbor is reportedly back in the Hadi government's hands, clearing mines there could be a task to incorporate in this year's exercise, but only if the area is truly secure.

Specialized minesweeping ships form part of the American and British naval contingents in the Persian Gulf and could be deployed to the Bab al-Mandab quickly.

In addition, several foreign navies are already stationed close to the strait. Djibouti provides bases for French and American forces as well as Japanese and Chinese military facilities.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia is in talks to establish a base there, while the UAE has opted for a base at the port of Berbera in the self-declared Somaliland, notionally part of Somalia. And Israel is widely believed to have patrol boats based on Eritrean islands just north of the strait.

CONCLUSION
The United States and its allies must be prepared for more incidents in the Bab al-Mandab. Contingency planning should include immediate steps to maintain free passage for commercial shipping, and to ensure that humanitarian aid can reach Yemen's estimated population of twenty-seven million, about a quarter of whom reportedly face famine.

It is difficult to imagine any such intervention or parallel diplomatic effort succeeding without Washington taking the lead role.

Bab al-Mandab Shipping Chokepoint Under Threat

 

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Bab el-Mandeb: The U.S. Ignores the Most Dangerous Strait ...
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/bab-el-mandeb-us-ignores-most-dangerous-strait...
Jun 28, 2018 · The threat posed to shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb from Yemen is real.

In 2016, missiles were fired by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels at a U.S. Navy warship near the Bab el-Mandeb.

 

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@oldbadger
@Revoltingest

Before you decide...…...

 

[Revoltingest]

@oldbadger
@Revoltingest

Before you decide...…...

I know your animosity towards Iran.
And I know that the issues in this thread concern you.
But I'm focusing instead on a larger picture, ie, Iran
can be turned from enemy to peaceful player if we
change our attitude towards them.
Stop the attacks.
Don't risk war.
Try negotiation.
It will take time to recover from over half a century of
abusing them. But it's doable.
Give reason, civility, tolerance, & peace a chance.

 

[columbus]

I'm reading your posts and trying to make sense of it.

But I really take exception to statements like:

In terms of capability and tradition, the leadership role in any such effort to safeguard freedom of passage would necessarily be taken by the U.S. Navy.

It is difficult to imagine any such intervention or parallel diplomatic effort succeeding without Washington taking the lead role.

I'm tired of the assumption that the USA should take the lead in such things. Let some international organization, like the EU or something, step up for once.

For very good reasons, the USA is extremely unpopular in the region. We've stuck our noses into altogether too much already. I'm over it.

Unfortunately, I expect that US military and corporate interests will sway against my interests and we will get involved.
Tom

 

[sooda]

I'm reading your posts and trying to make sense of it.

But I really take exception to statements like:



I'm tired of the assumption that the USA should take the lead in such things. Let some international organization, like the EU or something, step up for once.

For very good reasons, the USA is extremely unpopular in the region. We've stuck our noses into altogether too much already. I'm over it.

Unfortunately, I expect that US military and corporate interests will sway against my interests and we will get involved.
Tom

The US is not unpopular in the GCC ...

 

[columbus]

The US is not unpopular in the GCC ...

Maybe not with the rich and powerful. We are their enforcers, generally.
But there's a lot of other players, including all the countries immediately surrounding the straits.
Tom

 

[sooda]

Maybe not with the rich and powerful. We are their enforcers, generally.
But there's a lot of other players, including all the countries immediately surrounding the straits.
Tom

Everyone bordering the Persian Gulf and Red Sea needs safe, peaceful passage. .. including Egypt and those who routinely use SUMED.

 

[columbus]

Everyone bordering the Persian Gulf and Red Sea needs safe, peaceful passage. .. including Egypt and those who routinely use SUMED.

And my point was that the USA isn't the only country that can help with that, it's not the best one, and I'm tired being expected to do things like that.
Tom

 

[sooda]

And my point was that the USA isn't the only country that can help with that, it's not the best one, and I'm tired being expected to do things like that.
Tom

US ships have also been swarmed and attacked.

Iran, Hezbollah, HAMAS, Al Houthis and the war in Yemen are all connected.

The US military ships, which cross the Strait of Hormuz, are frequently harassed by small boats from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Navy, using an unmanned, remotely-controlled boat.

 

[columbus]

US ships have also been swarmed and attacked.

Iran, Hezbollah, HAMAS, Al Houthis and the war in Yemen are all connected.

The US military ships, which cross the Strait of Hormuz, are frequently harassed by small boats from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Navy, using an unmanned, remotely-controlled boat.

That's not really relevant to my post.
The USA doesn't have to take the lead in yet another excursion into pacifying a middle east conflict.
Tom

 

[sooda]

That's not really relevant to my post.
The USA doesn't have to take the lead in yet another excursion into pacifying a middle east conflict.
Tom

U.S. urges Iran to keep Strait of Hormuz open -State Department
WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - The United States called on Iran to keep the straits of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab open, a State Department official said on Tuesday after the United States a day ...

 

[columbus]

U.S. urges Iran to keep Strait of Hormuz open -State Department
WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - The United States called on Iran to keep the straits of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab open, a State Department official said on Tuesday after the United States a day ...

I can't help but notice how little response there is from the folks who support the party and president who tore up the peace deal with Iran.
Like those people "calling on Iran" to do anything have any influence. We might have had, before Trump reignited the conflict. But that was then and this is now. What's Trump going to do? Impose sanctions? Bomb Teheran?
Tom

 

[sooda]

I can't help but notice how little response there is from the folks who support the party and president who tore up the peace deal with Iran.
Like those people "calling on Iran" to do anything have any influence. We might have had, before Trump reignited the conflict. But that was then and this is now. What's Trump going to do? Impose sanctions? Bomb Teheran?
Tom

Reneging on the nuclear agreement was stupid, but Trump was keen to trash Obama's legacy at any cost.

Trump warns Iran of 'obliteration like you've never seen before'

Politico-1 hour ago

President Donald Trump warned the United States may launch a devastating military attack on Iran unless it comes to the negotiating table and ...

 

[Revoltingest]

I'm reading your posts and trying to make sense of it.

But I really take exception to statements like:



I'm tired of the assumption that the USA should take the lead in such things. Let some international organization, like the EU or something, step up for once.

For very good reasons, the USA is extremely unpopular in the region. We've stuck our noses into altogether too much already. I'm over it.

Unfortunately, I expect that US military and corporate interests will sway against my interests and we will get involved.
Tom

An advantage of having some umbrella organization handle things
is that it would take terrorist focus off of Ameristan somewhat.
And there'd likely be a greater perception of fairness by the combatants.

 

[columbus]

An advantage of having some umbrella organization handle things
is that it would take terrorist focus off of Ameristan somewhat.
And there'd likely be a greater perception of fairness by the combatants.

Which is quite a major advantage.

The USA has a well deserved reputation for ruthlessness. Let Egypt and KSA find a way to get the EU to lead it.
Rent them military preparedness, which the USA certainly has, if they decide that we're "expensive, but worth it". Really expensive, it certainly has been for the U.S. taxpayers.

What should an aircraft carrier, with a complement of warriors and jets and missiles cost per week, do you suppose?
Tom