Merchant ships and warships in the Red Sea are under frequent attack from anti-ship cruise missiles, anti-ship ballistic missiles, drones and sea mines.
Now a new threat has emerged under the water.
Already on February 18, US Central Command announced that naval forces in the Red Sea had destroyed an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) in Houthi-controlled waters around Yemen. This is the first time that the Houthi movement has been observed operating remotely controlled vessels since attacks began last October.
Just a few days earlier, CENTCOM issued a press release about the seizure of an arms shipment from Iran to the Houthis in Yemen. The seizure included components for unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and, in particular, unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), according to images released by CENTCOM. The weapons seizure links the Houthis' UUV threat to tools and techniques provided by Iran.
Hamas has also stated in the past that there are UUVs in Gaza, according to photos it released in November as reported by Naval News.
In recent times, the allies from the West are making a supreme effort to thwart any attempt to launch explosive drones or remotely controlled suicide boats. The coalition repeatedly bombards the inferno boat anchorages and with the help of spy satellites thwarts the firing of ballistic missiles while still in the preparation phase for launch
Now it turns out that in light of the Western superiority in the air that allows them to thwart the vast majority of the Houthis' attack attempts, there are signs that they are preparing to move and fight in the underwater medium.
By the way, Hezbollah has been equipped with such tools for a long time and this week the media in Lebanon reported that Hezbollah recruited all of its naval personnel and ordered them to prepare the tools.