Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement has dismissed plans to establish a US-led maritime task force in the Red Sea to protect the passage of Israel-bound merchant vessels, stressing that the group has numerous “stinging” pressure leverages that can be activated in the strategic body of water.
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansarullah’s political bureau, stated that “the deployment of four Israeli Sa’ar corvettes in the Red Sea is merely meant for propaganda purposes.”
He added, “We have stinging pressure leverages against the countries that will participate in the coalition in the Red Sea [against Yemen].”
Earlier, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, had rejected the United States’ talks with its allies to establish the maritime task force.
“The threat to establish a coalition in the Red Sea against Yemen has no value,” Houthi said in a statement, adding that such a move would “threaten the security and stability in the region.”
The development came after the Pentagon said last week that it is ready to help set up a maritime task force to protect merchant shipping in the Red Sea following a series of Yemeni attacks on ships, which are either Israeli-owned or heading toward the occupied Palestinian territories.
Top Yemeni official lauds Armed Forces’ solidarity with Gaza, Hezbollah
Meanwhile, the head of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council has lauded the country’s armed forces for their solid support of resilient Palestinians in the face of the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip and for standing on the same front as that of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement to counter Israel.
Mahdi al-Mashat said in a statement that Yemeni forces together with Lebanese and Palestinian resistance forces must join forces to tackle daunting challenges, potential threats and simmering tensions, deal heavy blows to the Zionist entity, and increase their combat readiness for any possible scenario.
Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity.
The relentless Israeli military campaign against Gaza has killed at least 18,412 people, most of them women and children, in Gaza since. Another 50,000 individuals have been wounded as well.
On December 4, the Yemeni army targeted two Israeli ships in the Red Sea as they were attempting to cross the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Reports revealed that Israeli shipping companies have already decided to reroute their vessels in fear of attacks by Yemeni forces.
Yemeni forces have also launched missile and drone attacks on targets in the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine after the occupying regime’s aggression on Gaza.
