A U.S.-led coalition of 13 countries issued a warning to Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on Wednesday, vowing consequences should the group continue attacks in the Red Sea.<\/p>\n
The U.S. was joined by the U.K., Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore and New Zealand in Wednesday\u2019s statement. The nations said that the destabilization of trade throughout the Red Sea is \u2018unacceptable\u2019 and vowed consequences.<\/p>\n
\u2018Ongoing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are illegal,\u00a0unacceptable, and profoundly destabilizing. There is no lawful justification for intentionally targeting civilian shipping and naval vessels. Attacks on\u00a0vessels, including\u00a0commercial vessels,\u00a0using unmanned aerial vehicles, small boats, and missiles, including the first use of anti-ship ballistic missiles against such vessels, are a direct threat to the freedom of navigation that serves as the bedrock of global trade in one of the world\u2019s most critical waterways,\u2019 the nations wrote.<\/p>\n
\u2018Let our message now be clear: we call for the immediate end of\u00a0these\u00a0illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews. The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region\u2019s critical waterways.\u00a0We remain committed to the international rules-based order and are determined to hold malign actors accountable for unlawful seizures and attacks,\u2019 the statement continued.<\/p>\n
There have been roughly two dozen attacks on international shipping by the Houthis since Oct. 19. The Houthis say their attacks are aimed at Israel-linked ships to stop the Israeli offensive in Gaza.<\/p>\n
The Houthis have launched missiles at numerous ships in recent weeks and struck a Maersk container vessel on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Last month, the U.S. announced the formation of Operation Prosperity Guardian, an international initiative to protect commercial ships traveling through the Red Sea. Since then, approximately 1,200 merchant ships have traveled through the region, and none had been hit by drone or missile strikes until Saturday.<\/p>\n
Currently, there are five warships from the U.S., France and the U.K. patrolling the waters of the southern Red Sea and the western Gulf of Aden. The ships have so far shot down a total of 17 drones and four anti-ship ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n
Fox News\u2019 Bradford Betz contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n
A U.S.-led coalition of 13 countries issued a warning to Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on Wednesday, vowing consequences should the group continue attacks in the Red Sea. The U.S. was joined by the U.K., Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore and New Zealand in Wednesday\u2019s statement. The nations said that <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}