In conjunction with attacks Houthi group Yemeni in The Red Sea On Israeli ships or heading to Israeli ports, the area extending from the Gulf of Aden to the Arabian Sea and even… Indian Ocean Operations targeted ships on the international maritime trade route, which raises questions about who is behind these operations.

If the Houthis claimed responsibility for many of the operations that targeted Israeli ships or those related to Tel Aviv, then similar operations, whether in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, or even the Indian Ocean, were not claimed by any party, although the finger of blame was pointed either at the Houthis, or at Iran, or at Somali Pirates. In the Puntland region (Puntland).

Eritrea is on the verge of conflict

Among these operations, the British Maritime Trade Operations Authority announced on January 16 that 4 suspicious boats approached a ship within 400 meters, but moved away after the ship’s guards fired warning shots into the seawater, prompting the boats to leave.

The British Authority did not mention who the ship was tracking, nor even the flag it was flying, nor the identity of the attackers, nor did any party claim responsibility for the attack.

Given that the attack occurred north of the port of Assab, which is located southeast of Eritrea and opposite the Yemeni port of Mokha, which is under the control of the Houthi group, it is not unlikely that the Houthis were behind the operation, which did not achieve its goal.

The southern Red Sea is an area of ​​activity for the Houthi group, and it is unlikely that Somali pirates were behind that attack given the distance and the attackers’ use of boats and not ships that can sail long distances and cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which is full of American and international warships.

But the interesting thing is that the Eritrean port of Assab, near which the incident occurred, has had an Iranian military base since 2009. What is even stranger is that Israel has a military base in the Dahlak Archipelago (east) and a second eavesdropping base at the summit of Emba Suwayra, the highest mountain in the country (southeast). In addition to a military presence in the port of Massawa, east of the capital, Asmara, according to Lebanese researcher Ibrahim Alloush.

This presence of the two largest regional enemies in the Middle East, in the south of Eritrea (Iran) and the north (Israel), was not without incidents whose perpetrator was anonymous, such as the targeting of two Israeli bases in Eritrea on October 26 last, 19 days after the beginning of the war on Gaza and before One day from the beginning of the ground war on the Strip.

Therefore, the Assab Port ship accident cannot be ruled out as being related to the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, the Houthis’ attempt to break the siege on Gaza, or an expression of the conflict between Tehran and Tel Aviv in the southern Red Sea.

What will confirm this hypothesis is revealing the identity of the ship and whether it has a relationship with Israel or Iran.

The conflict extends to the Indian Ocean

The targeting of Israeli ships is no longer limited to the Red Sea. Rather, the war expanded to the Indian Ocean after the British Maritime Trade Operations Authority announced on December 23 that a drone had targeted a container ship owned by an Israeli businessman, about 370 kilometers southwest of the Indian port of Veraval.

Washington pointed the finger directly at Iran, despite its denial that it was behind this attack, and the Houthis were not mentioned given the distance between them and the eastern Indian Ocean, although they usually announce their successful operations in targeting Israeli ships, and they have previously targeted a port. Israeli Eilat (south) with drones and ballistic missiles.

Somali pirates can also be excluded because they do not have drones that can reach the eastern Indian Ocean, as their tactics depend on the use of speedboats and a few individuals armed with light weapons.

But the most important message that the attackers sent to the Israeli ships, according to observers, is that they are unsafe even if they change their course towards the Cape of Good Hope, away from the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Suez Canal.

The return of the Somali pirates

Although most of the attacks targeting ships on the main maritime trade route between Asia and Europe via the Red Sea are blamed on the Houthis in the first place and the Iranians in the second place, the Somali pirates have returned to the forefront after their role declined during the last four years.

Since the beginning of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, there have been several incidents targeting ships. Last November, pirates suspected of being Somali hijacked an Iranian fishing vessel in the Gulf of Aden and demanded a ransom, which denies their relationship with the Houthis and Tehran, or the assumption of sympathy with the residents of the Gaza Strip.

Two days later, unidentified gunmen on board speed boats attempted to hijack the Central Park oil tanker owned by Israelis in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of the Somali region of Puntland, but the US Navy chased them and arrested 5 of them.

Several reports indicated that the unidentified gunmen are nothing but Somali pirates, without it being immediately clear what the purpose of targeting an Israeli oil tanker was, at a time when the focus in the last three months of 2023 was on the hijacking of Iranian fishing vessels, such as the hijacking of two Iranian fishing vessels in September. The past, that is, before the outbreak of the war on the Gaza Strip.

The hijacking of a Maltese-flagged commercial ship in the Arabian Sea was also recorded last December near an island Socotra Yemen, according to the European Union Naval Force.

Although the Spanish Ministry of Defense described the hijackers as unknown attackers, Western media reports classified the incident as the first hijacking of a commercial ship by Somali pirates since 2017.

Whether the Houthis, Iran, or Somali pirates are behind these attacks on fishing or shipping ships or oil tankers, this will have negative repercussions on one of the most important global shipping routes, and the continuation of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip would open more than one front to the conflict.